Unexpected and Inconvenient
by Tridacnagigas
Summary: Sasuke discovers he has a heart after all, but he can't let it interfere with his goals. Alright, maybe a little. Sasuke x Naruto
1. Chapter 1

Hi! Mostly in the timeline, but Tsunade came early and Sakura is already learning from her even though Sasuke hasn't left yet (whew, closed _that_ gaping plot hole). More than a one-shot, so the characters might become overly angsty or obtuse at times. I tried to make them be happy, but they refused. As in character (by Masashi Kishimoto-sensei) as possible, under the circumstances.

And no, I have no idea how this is going to end. Should be fun, right? Hajimemasu!

***********

Naruto reluctantly opened his eyes as the morning sun jabbed through a crack in his drapes. They didn't have a mission today, so they would spend all day out at the training grounds, either sparring or learning new jutsu. Probably sparring, with how lazy Kakashi-sensei was. Which meant there'd be no enemy threats to distract him from the fact that he was becoming more and more attracted to his teammate, one Uchiha Sasuke.

Oh, sure, he still loved Sakura-chan, but this felt different to him. It had started a few months ago, when they had been fighting off enemies who had wanted to assassinate their charge on a mission, and Sasuke's shirt had been torn by a knife he had allowed to come too close. Naruto had almost been stabbed by an enemy ninja because he was shocked into staring at the revealed pale chest.

He tried to write it off as simple lust, and after he had dispatched the assailant he had shoved the visual to the back of his head to think about some other time, preferably never. The rest of the mission had gone uneventfully, and it wasn't until Naruto was home and in his bed alone in his apartment that he had once again seen that pallid marble chest in his dreams, and then he had been running his hands all over it.

He had woken with a start, sitting up and pulling his knees to his chest in the darkness of his bedroom, and wondered what the hell he should do now. The bastard didn't have any emotions; Itachi'd killed them all when he'd killed the rest of his family. Anyway, if Sasuke spent all of his time training to become strong enough to beat said sadistic elder brother, he would hardly want to spare time to dally with the town outcast, even if he was his teammate.

Naruto turned over, curling around his pillow so that his back was to the invasive ray of sunshine. He'd had another dream about Sasuke, but this time instead of focusing on his chest, Naruto had been drawn to his black eyes and the remote expression on his sculpted face. Except this time the face had been softened, those eyes had hidden a light, and the mouth had curved at the corners into an actual smile, rather than his usual smirk. The sight had tugged at Naruto's emotions in a way that had nothing to do with sex.

The alarm clock on his bedside table went off, unnecessary as usual, even stupid because it wasn't like Kakashi-sensei was going to be there on time anyway. He slid out of bed and pulled off his nightcap, then paced as lightly as possible across the cold floor to the bathroom, still pondering his dilemma as he began to get ready for the day.

The way he figured it, Sasuke had three emotional expressions: scowl, smirk, and bored. The smile he had seen in his dream must have been a fragment of memory from grade school-before the Uchiha massacre-that he had grafted onto the Sasuke of today. As he shoveled in his breakfast ramen, he wanted desperately to be able to make Sasuke smile like that for real.

He straightened his house up a little before strapping on his gear and heading out the door, locking it behind himself. It was futile, of course; if some drunken villagers wanted to get in to graffiti his walls and destroy his furniture, it was only too easy for them to break down the door. He still felt obliged to make the effort, for the sake of some ideal of normalcy that would never be his, thanks to the Kyuubi.

He took off over the rooftops to the red bridge where his team always met, a little late so that someone would already be there, so that he wouldn't be standing there by himself. The mistreatment wasn't as bad as it used to be, but the glares and the crossing to the other side of the street when he passed still hurt almost as much as the beatings.

The bridge came into sight, and he jacked his grin into place, even though his heart started pounding faster when he saw that Sasuke was also there already, standing next to their pink-haired teammate.

"Ohayo, Sakura-chan!" he called as his feet hit the ground and he jogged the last few feet to the bridge.

She glanced at him and gave him a friendly wave. "You're so noisy, Naruto," she replied, but it didn't have the heat it once had, and he didn't sense any anger. The blank friendliness used to bother him, like she'd never see him as anything other than a comrade, but strangely he was more and more okay with that lately.

"Hey, bastard," he added, hopping up to sit on the railing of the fence on the other side of Sakura and leaning around her to see Sasuke, who was slouched in his usual "I'm way too cool for this shit" pose against a railing post. He got a 'hn' in reply, but that was normal, and it didn't bother him.

He lapsed into silence, staring off into space, thinking about Sasuke's smile as he waited for their sensei to show up. After a few minutes, he realized that Sakura was staring curiously at him. "Eh? What?" he asked.

"Are you feeling alright? It's so odd for you to actually be quiet," she answered.

_Ah, shit_. He scratched the back of his neck and tried to keep from blushing. "I was just thinking about how cute you look today, Sakura-_chaaaaan_!" The wrinkle between her pink brows didn't smooth out, but he wasn't going to say anything else. It would only dig his hole deeper.

He had to keep his expression even more under control when his gaze fell past Sakura to their third teammate, who to his surprise was looking over at him with an unprecedented fourth expression, which seemed to be curiosity. A few seconds after Naruto's reply, though, the expression vanished, Sasuke shrugged, and he went back to staring down the river as it flowed under them and off into the distance around the village.

Naruto kicked his legs against the bridge railing, keeping up the expected screen of chatter he had so carelessly forgotten, until their sensei appeared with a loud bang in a cloud of smoke directly in front of Sakura, who didn't react except to cross her arms over her chest, distinctly unamused.

"Maaa, it was so much more fun when you used to jump in the air and shriek," said Kakashi-sensei, but his eye was an arch and they knew he was kidding.

"The most dangerous jounin in the village gets his kicks by scaring genin. Sad, really," Sakura said, heaving an exaggerated sigh. Naruto laughed along with his sensei, and eventually Sakura joined in. Sasuke didn't. No one had expected him to, but Naruto still wanted badly to see Sasuke's smile; hearing a laugh from him might be too much to ask for.

"Alright, team, let's go train. Nothing special today, just sparring. I'll take on each of you, one at a time, and then tell you how you're doing and what you should work on. After that, you can spar in pairs. I'll take Sasuke first, then Sakura then Naruto. Sound good?"

Sakura and Naruto nodded, and Sasuke shrugged, as if to say, does it matter if we think it sounds good?

Team Seven arrived at a training ground outside the village walls, a clearing ringed with trees and floored with grass. Kakashi-sensei led them in stretching and limbering exercises, and then stepped out into the middle of the grassy area and beckoned Sasuke to follow him. After that, Naruto was transfixed.

Sasuke was beauty in motion to watch, and he took the opportunity to stare unabashedly as kunai flashed and bodies blurred, almost too fast to see. Kakashi-sensei may have been more skilled, but his economy of motion wasn't nearly as nice to look at. Naruto stared at the blur that was his "best friend" as he attacked and defended, Sharingan activated to analyze Kakashi-sensei's every move, muscles rippling under his blue shirt and bare legs flexing with contained power.

Naruto surreptitiously checked to make sure he wasn't drooling like Sakura was. It was so rare that he got the opportunity to sit and watch Sasuke; usually they were busy with other opponents, or sparring with each other. He was sure his subconscious was memorizing Sasuke's muscle movements to add to his dreams. He looked forward to it.

*****(short time-skip cuz I'm too lazy to write a sparring sequence)*****

Kakashi-sensei concluded his battle with Sasuke, and then took him aside to talk about what he'd observed; he would never reveal another person's weaknesses publicly, not even to their own teammates. Then he called Sakura in, after letting her warm herself up again. Sasuke seated himself on the grass under the tree next to Naruto, who was again entranced by the fight, though this time for slightly different reasons.

The contrast between Sasuke's and Sakura's fighting styles was enormous, yet both were incredibly effective, and he stared as Sakura and Kakashi-sensei seemed to dance with each other back and forth across the grass, blades flashing and chakra sparkling as Sakura occasionally employed what she had learned from Tsunade-baba.

Then it was over, and Sakura had come back over looking thoughtful as she mulled over the information that Kakashi-sensei had given her. Kakashi-sensei sipped from a water bottle and informed Naruto that he needed a ten-minute break before taking him on. Naruto glanced at the angle of the sun and was surprised to notice that over two hours had passed. No wonder Kakashi-sensei had needed a break, fighting both of his amazing teammates one right after the other.

After a while, Kakashi-sensei strode to the center of the clearing, now scarred with ashes from Sasuke's fire jutsu and rubble from Sakura's amazingly powerful punch, and beckoned Naruto to follow. He hopped over a fallen tree and grinned ruefully at his teacher. "You saved me for last because you need the least chakra to hold me off?"

Kakashi-sensei's eye was serious, rather than the arch of humor he had expected. "It was more for you than for me. You need to be strong so the Kyuubi doesn't gain control over you. It's locked away for a reason. Ready?"

Naruto barely had time to nod before Kakashi-sensei was a blur of motion and he had to defend himself. The fight went by in a blur of seconds, accompanied by the clashing of kunai. He used his kage bunshin, but strategically rather than recklessly as he was accustomed to doing. He knew that Kakashi-sensei could counter anything he could come up with, so he gave it his all, pulling out Rasengan and everything he knew how to do. Kakashi-sensei was momentarily distracted by a sexy-no-jutsu'd shadow clone and Naruto was almost able to nail him in the back but Kakashi-sensei kawarimi'd at the last second and Naruto's knife stuck deep in a log that had appeared in place of Kakashi-sensei's body.

Naruto didn't know how long it took, but Kakashi-sensei eventually called a halt, and Naruto put his remaining kunai away as he tried to catch his breath. He listened as Kakashi-sensei told him about watching his right-hand blind spot and practicing his kunai-throwing skills, but his mind was already flashing ahead to how he might now be able to spar with Sasuke.

"Lunch break," called Kakashi-sensei cheerfully to his team. "After you eat - or not, your choice - I expect you to practice what I've talked to you about, but you don't need my supervision for that. No mission tomorrow either, but I still expect you to be at the bridge on time for a team meeting."

"But _you_ won't-" Sakura's protest was cut off by a loud _bang_ as Kakashi-sensei disappeared into a cloud of whirling smoke. ". . . be on time." She turned to her teammates. "I'm going to find Ino to spar with. You guys always work harder against each other anyway."

Naruto nodded. Sakura would eat lunch, but she always pretended to be on a diet in front of Sasuke, like her self-discipline would make her more attractive to him or something. "See you tomorrow, Sakura-chan!" He waved cheerily, and watched as her gaze moved to Sasuke, who wordlessly lifted a hand. Gratified by the response, she turned on her heel and jogged back toward the village.

Searching through his weapons pack, Naruto extracted the bento box he had packed and dug into his lunch, sensing in his peripheral vision that Sasuke had done the same. "Are we sparring after lunch, bastard?"

"Hn," was the only reply, but Naruto had known Sasuke for a long time, and he was able to decipher his moody grunts, and this one seemed to be an agreeable one. Naruto drifted off into thoughts of what Sasuke would look like if he took his shirt off to spar.

They shared the silence beneath the tree that kept the hot sun off their heads as they ate their lunches. After they finished, Sasuke scooted back to lean against the tree trunk and Naruto sprawled facedown on the grass in the middle of the clearing to digest for a while. The warm sun felt good on his back, so he took off his jacket and used it for a pillow and the next thing he knew, someone was kicking him awake. Gently, though, not like the villagers did if they caught him alone down a dark alley.

He opened his eyes and stared up at Sasuke, who was standing over him, face blank. "Wake up, idiot. Do you want to spar or not?" Naruto smiled in response to this speech and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He jumped to his feet and did a few quick limbering stretches, kicking his jacket out of the way under the tree where Sasuke had been sitting, before he turned to face Sasuke in the middle of the clearing.

The two boys took ready stances, and then Naruto charged first, as was his custom, but he didn't go straight at Sasuke, rather dodging sideways and aiming a kick at Sasuke's legs. Sasuke of course dodged away, but by then their proximity dictated the use of taijutsu only, because neither had time to form hand seals.

As a rule during their sparring sessions, Sasuke refrained from using advanced Sharingan techniques and Naruto kept the use of his shadow clones to a minimum, mostly because he knew it annoyed Sasuke a lot. But he still had to look out for any genjutsu Sasuke might spin, which gave him an excuse not to look at Sasuke's eyes. He was glad of it, because he knew if he met that gaze with his own, he would become lost, and he couldn't afford any distractions. Sasuke's goal was to make himself stronger, so he never fought with anything less than his best.

They fought on even footing for a while as the sun slid down from its zenith, but eventually Naruto's focus faltered and he had to continually force his hands not to linger anywhere on Sasuke's body. _Must show him I'm worthy, must show him I'm worthy_, he chanted over and over inside his head. If Sasuke acknowledged him as a worthy opponent he might consider him for something else some day, but his attention kept drifting back to the pale column of neck that bloomed out of Sasuke's collar, so in a lull in their fight he called for a break before Sasuke took advantage and seriously injured him.

They sat side by side under the tree, whose shadow now stretched long over the ground of the clearing. It wasn't until Naruto felt eyes on him and looked up to meet Sasuke's once-again curious gaze that he realized he'd forgotten to turn on his chatter autopilot.

"Dobe, is something wrong with you?" Sasuke's voice was emotionless, as usual, and Naruto could tell he'd only asked because the health of a teammate affected him on a mission, too.

The old nickname still stung, even after all this time. Was that how Sasuke thought of him? Was that how he'd always think of him? There was no chance in hell that a genius ninja would voluntarily attach himself to someone he considered beneath himself. If only he had some way to prove to Sasuke that he could be worthy of his attention.

Inside the dank sealed cage in Naruto's mind, Kyuubi stirred and perked up its ears in interest. _I smell desperation. Sounds like a job for me. How many pieces do you want him in?_

Naruto shook his head, in answer to both the nine-tailed fox and to his teammate. "I'm fine. Ready to go again?" He'd show Sasuke his true strength.

* * * * *(POV change! ooh, exciting!)* * * * *

Sasuke's day started much like any other. People who didn't have his single-minded focus might think him boring or in a rut of some kind, but he didn't care what other people thought. He brooked no distractions, and allowed no emotions to interfere with his goals.

He rolled out of bed just after dawn with a token glare at the sun, did his morning stretching and exercises, and then got ready for a day of training. Caring about his appearance had nothing to do with making him stronger, but he was the only one left to hold up the Uchiha name, and he refused to disgrace their memory by looking sloppy. He drew the line at spending any more time than he had to on his hair, which he toweled off and finger-combed after stepping out of the shower. Naruto said it stuck up in the back, but he had never checked in a mirror to see whether he was serious or not.

Hands in pockets, he strode through the wakening village to the red crescent bridge over the nameless creek. He was early, of course, but he relished the solitude and the last few minutes of silence he would get all day, with a teammate like Naruto.

Sakura showed up a few minutes later and after a greeting and an inquiry after his health, which he answered with a half-wave and a 'hn,' she also lapsed into silence. Telling her he hated girls who talked too much had been one of his better ideas. He could not, however, prevent her from shooting continual furtive glances in his direction.

The sun climbed a little higher into the sky while they waited, until finally Naruto showed up twenty minutes late. It was a common occurrence on training days, but he always showed up on time when they went on missions so Sasuke didn't see any reason to worry about it.

He did become slightly curious when, after Naruto's greetings, the silence continued. Curiosity wasn't an emotion he allowed himself, so he was a little annoyed at Naruto for doing something so out of the ordinary. Curiosity was for people who still had hearts, and Itachi had ripped his out years ago, so he felt the slightest hint of gratitude when Sakura asked Naruto what was up.

His answer was definitely unsatisfactory, but it wasn't like they had a mission or a person to protect or anything, so Naruto could be as distracted as he pleased today and it wouldn't bother him.

It did, though. Naruto started chattering after this, and the silence he had been enjoying so much evaporated like the morning dew on the grass next to the bridge, but now that Sakura had called attention to it he could sense that Naruto's heart wasn't in it. Had it ever been? He'd never cared enough to listen, really _listen_, to Naruto's chattering before.

He pushed the thoughts away until he could only hear faint echoes of them inside the icy silence of his head. It didn't matter. Just like the random bruises he sometimes found on Naruto when they sparred didn't matter. He wasn't allowed to be curious; he had a goal to accomplish, a family to avenge.

Kakashi-sensei appeared and led them all to the training field, where he proceeded to engage Sasuke in a pitched battle. Sasuke tried his hardest, but as usual he couldn't even come close to beating Kakashi-sensei. It was just as well; the day he had nothing more to learn here, he was leaving.

He was aware of two pairs of eyes following his fight. This was nothing new, as Sakura usually stared at him and Naruto usually watched him for weaknesses to exploit in their next spar, but the scrutiny was unusually intense today. Naruto must be getting desperate to beat him.

He finished his spar with Kakashi-sensei, absorbed his sensei's hints about ways to improve and use his bloodline limit, then paced over to take a seat under the tree next to Naruto as Sakura took her turn. He watched the battle with a minimum of interest, if only so that he would know his teammate's strengths and weaknesses so that he knew how much he could rely on her during missions. She had vastly improved since the chuunin exam, but she was still weak.

After Kakashi-sensei had a break, Naruto went in. Sasuke could sense his resignation to being deemed the weakest on the team, since Kakashi-sensei obviously needed the least chakra to hold him off, but the look on his face was one of pure determination.

The ensuing spar was interesting to watch. Naruto had surprisingly learned a lot over the year they had been a team, and he was using all of it in this fight. Unfortunately, Kakashi-sensei had been the one to _teach_ him most of it, so he could evade whatever Naruto threw at him. Despite Naruto's failure to land a hit on Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke picked up a few things from the vast variety in his repertoire, and by the time Kakashi-sensei called a halt for lunch he was more than ready to give Naruto a shot at beating him. Not that it was likely, but Naruto never stopped trying.

Kakashi-sensei gave Naruto his tips and ended with a warning that wasn't quite quiet enough, something about his chakra and his emotions. Sasuke thought this seemed odd, because Naruto had an unusually large amount of chakra - which was what allowed him to make so many of those annoying shadow clones - so it wasn't likely he'd run out. Oh well, none of his business.

Sakura ran off to gossip with Ino, leaving Sasuke anticipating a good spar after he ate lunch with the still-unusually-quiet Naruto. When he had finished, he leaned back against the tree and meditated while his food digested. Naruto sprawled in the sun, clad in only a t-shirt so that a fading bruise showed clear on his upper arm.

He decided to indulge himself a brief moment of curiosity while he considered Naruto's persistent injuries. Was he just extraordinarily clumsy? Even ninja tripped and fell every once in a while, but Naruto's injuries were too regular; there were always fresh ones before the old ones faded away completely.

Perhaps he had found a sparring partner even better than Sasuke, who could actually land multiple punches on him? Sasuke found this unlikely, since the only people better than him were some of the jounin, and they wouldn't have the time or inclination to spar with Naruto anyway. He just couldn't figure it out, but there was no way he was going to ask. Speculation inside your own head was one thing, but putting it into words _would_ be curiosity, for which he had no time.

Standing, he walked to Naruto and nudged him in the ribs with his foot, being a little more gentle than usual because if there were bruises of unknown origin on Naruto's arms and legs, who knew where else they might be?

He didn't know why he always insulted Naruto. He never bothered with anyone else. He supposed it was because no one else tried so hard to get him to notice them. There were the fangirls, of course, but they wanted his attention for different reasons. Naruto just wanted to be seen as a person, and Sasuke's opinion meant worlds to him. If Sasuke had still been able to feel, he might have been touched.

They sparred for most of the afternoon, neither gaining the upper hand. Rather, both got the upper hand at various times but promptly lost it again as their opponent pulled out some new trick to throw them off guard. This might have gone on all night, but Naruto's reaction time was perceptibly slowing and Sasuke wasn't surprised when he called for a break.

He didn't think Naruto was tired. The blonde's stamina was incredible, and he could outlast even Sasuke if he really put his mind to it, so something had to be wrong with him. The conjecture was solidified in Sasuke's mind when Naruto once again failed to spout meaningless chatter while they sat side by side under the tree.

He studied Naruto, trying to determine what was wrong with him by looks alone, but it was impossible. Finally, he gave in to the forbidden curiosity and asked the dobe what was going on. He focused his senses on the blonde so that despite the once-again unsatisfactory answer, he got something else to think about: a flash of red chakra staining Naruto's regular blue aura. What the hell was going on?

He figured that with Naruto's stubbornness, he would have to break both his legs and arms before he admitted to having a problem, so Sasuke returned to their sparring with increased intensity. If he could answer this question, he could settle that annoying itch of curiosity on the back of his mind and go back to being emotionless again. Life was so much less complicated that way.

It seemed that Naruto also was giving this spar his all, but his desperation made him vulnerable. He was committing himself completely to each attack, which made his recovery time slower, especially if he missed. Sasuke took full advantage of this, so that eventually he had backed Naruto up to the tree and, on a lucky opportunity, grabbed both his arms and pinned them over his head.

He could still see Naruto clearly, despite the fact that the sun had set, and he was shocked to see tears gathering in his eyes. "Seriously, dobe, what's wrong with you?" Again, the insult slipped out. He didn't consider Naruto to be dead last - hadn't for months - but the name seemed to fit in an ironic, going-to-be-Hokage-some-day sort of way.

The response was completely unexpected. The teary blue eyes flashed to red, the pupils narrowing to slits, and Naruto's chakra turned scarlet. This lasted for a few seconds while Naruto struggled to free his hands. When Sasuke let go and stepped back in shock, the red chakra surged then disappeared. Naruto sent a frightened glance in his direction, and then took off running back toward the town at top speed.

Still driven by irrational curiosity, though he told himself it was because Naruto had forgotten his jacket, he grabbed said orange object and ran after Naruto, following the jerky chakra signature which told him that Naruto was crying. He passed through the gates at a jog - no need to alarm Izumo and Kotetsu - and channeled chakra into his feet to scale the nearest building. Naruto was running through the darkened streets, so the fastest way to catch up with him would be by using the rooftops.

He knew where Naruto lived, since Kakashi-sensei would send Sakura and him to visit Naruto when he was sick, as a team bonding "mission," so he could predict the direction Naruto was taking. His jerky chakra signature was easy to follow, and Sasuke didn't even have to look down at the street to know he was catching up to his blonde teammate.

Unexpectedly, Naruto stopped running. Extending his senses as he leapt another rooftop, Sasuke felt the presence of four other people, standing near where Naruto had halted. His signature had gone from jerky to frozen, almost instantly. Suddenly concerned, Sasuke peered over the edge of the rooftop just in time to see one of the four villagers surrounding Naruto send a fist into his nose.

Sasuke stayed where he was, crouched with one hand on the warm roof tiles for balance, and waited for Naruto to destroy these clowns like he knew he was capable of doing. Instead, the other villagers joined in, pummeling Naruto until he fell to the ground and then kicking him.

He was unable to explain the phenomenon that happened next, inside his own body. He felt. That in itself was strange, because he hadn't felt anything since Itachi had lobotomized that part of his brain. He found that his free hand had clutched at his shirt over his chest, and he realized that he felt an almost physical pain centered there.

_I have a heart_, he thought with shock. _I have a heart, and the sight of Naruto being injured is breaking it_. As it had at the Wave Country, his body was moving, unfolding, striding down the side of the building as easily as he might stroll down the path to the village, but this time he knew why. Naruto had always told him he was his precious person, and it seemed that he finally knew how that felt.

When he hit the sidewalk, anger like he had only known when faced with his murderous nii-san flooded through him at the close-up sight of the four villagers kicking his teammate. He knew that afterwards he would have to lock away these extraneous feelings again, but for now he luxuriated in them. Someone was going to get their head ripped off and thrown into a dumpster.


	2. Chapter 2

Naruto curled into a protective ball on a sidewalk that still radiated heat it had absorbed during the day as leather-covered toes pummeled his body. He bit back a scream as he felt a rib crack. It normally wasn't this bad, but they had been drinking and he had been crying. Usually, if he showed no emotion, they lost interest and wandered off after a mild bout of name-calling, but this time he had already been upset and they had taken exception to this.

He never fought back. That would only make it worse. They already called him a monster, but how much worse would they think of him if he, a trained shinobi, dared raise a hand against them, "harmless" villagers? Besides, Kyuubi's chakra would heal the worst of his wounds by morning. After a particularly vicious kick to his head, which bounced it onto the concrete with a _crack_, his assailants paused.

Naruto stayed curled in his ball, his mind gone slightly fuzzy, not wanting to see what they planned next and not daring to move until he was sure they had gone. Nothing happened. For a few seconds, nothing continued to happen. Naruto cautiously extended his senses and could still feel the alcohol-hazed presences of the civilians, but now an angry thundercloud had interposed itself between them and his body.

Without moving any other part of his body, he opened an eye, blinked it until the blood from a wound on his forehead cleared away, and forced it to focus. A person-shaped shadow surrounded by a crackling purple aura was standing with its back to him, facing the villagers. Judging by the expressions on their faces, which he could barely make out through the pounding of his head, the shadow's expression was an explicit threat. They looked absolutely terrified.

The person hissed, "Don't touch him. You are never to touch this person again. Do I make myself clear?" The voice held arctic chill and barely restrained rage. The villagers were backing away, stumbling over each other but unable to look away.

One of them, the biggest, who had thrown the first punch, stopped moving backwards and tried to stand bravely, though his legs were trembling. "But it's not a person, it-"

The shadow vanished, and then appeared again in the same spot so quickly that Naruto couldn't be sure it had moved at all. The other villagers, who had stopped to watch their ringleader confront the nightmare, were still staring with impossibly wide eyes as the big man suddenly screamed and collapsed on the ground, clutching his ankle as blood streamed through his fingers.

"_Do I make myself clear?_" the shadow said again, this time in a more carrying voice. Naruto blinked his eye. Apparently, the man's Achilles tendon had just been severed.

One of the remaining villagers took cringing steps forward until he could grasp the shoulders of his leader. As he pulled him away he said, "Yes, sir, very clear. Never again. Absolutely. We'll, um, we'll just be going now." He had retreated to his companions, who also grabbed their leader and helped drag. One of them halted, straightened up, and suddenly a shuriken was flying through the air toward the shadow. Or maybe it was toward Naruto; with the mixture of his concussion and the villager's bad aim, he couldn't be sure what was going on any more.

There was a clang and a flash of sparks as the shadow's hand moved to intercept, and Naruto could see that it held the still-bloody kunai that had sliced the leader's leg. In the same movement the kunai was flying through the air back toward the villager, who looked surprised as the knife suddenly bloomed out of his shoulder. He turned and high-tailed it down the street after his companions as his sleeve began turning red.

Right before Naruto blacked out, the shadow-person turned around and he caught a glimpse of pale skin and a murderous expression framed by silky dark hair. _Huh, the concussion must be making me hallucinate_, was his last thought before the darkness claimed him.

* * * * *

Sasuke gazed down at the pitiful form of his battered teammate and took a deep breath, unsure what to do next. He hadn't thought past punishing the villagers for their abuse of his teammate, and he still didn't know why the sight had affected him so deeply. It had to be more than just concern that an injured teammate could endanger him on a mission.

Looking up and down the deserted alley, Sasuke wondered whether or not to take Naruto to the hospital. He was disinclined to feel charitable towards any villagers - doctors or otherwise - at the moment, and he knew some shinobi field doctoring, so he swung Naruto's beaten and unconscious body onto his back and set off towards Naruto's apartment. He would have felt more comfortable if he could have taken Naruto home with him, but they had been sparring all day and he was tired - plus Naruto probably shouldn't be moved too much - and the ghost-ridden Uchiha estates were all the way across town.

While he was climbing the four flights of stairs to Naruto's top-floor apartment, he felt Naruto stir on his back, letting out a pained whimper when Sasuke vaulted over a broken step and jarred them both.

The limp arms he had draped around his neck tightened a little, and the head that had lolled into the crook of his neck lifted. "Sasuke? What are you doing?" The voice was weak and uncertain.

That bothered him a little, for a multitude of reasons, the biggest of which was that he sounded that way at all. Naruto should always be loud and sure of himself, even when he was dead-wrong and everyone knew it. But there was another reason as well, one that Sasuke discovered mattered a lot. Naruto was questioning Sasuke's decision to help him. Yesterday that wouldn't have mattered to him in the slightest, but now, suddenly, it did.

"I'm taking care of you, idiot," he said into the waiting silence, in case Naruto was still listening and hadn't passed out again. "Someone has to, apparently. Wha-? What are you doing?" The blonde had started to struggle, trying to get off of Sasuke's back.

"Put me down, bastard. You don't have to take care of me. I'm used to it-" Naruto's teeth clicked shut on the last sentence, as if he hadn't meant to say it at all, and Sasuke was sure Naruto had felt the way his shoulders had stiffened at its implications. For a few more stairs he tried to make his teammate let him down, but when his weak struggles failed to dislodge Sasuke's iron grip he stopped trying.

There was a loaded silence as Sasuke reached the landing outside Naruto's front door, as if both boys could tell that the conversation wasn't nearly over. "Key?" Sasuke asked. The golden head sank back onto his shoulder and he tried to keep them both balanced as Naruto shifted on his back, digging in his pouch and coming up with a small golden key with a mumbled 'aha!' of triumph.

Sasuke took the key as it was slipped into his hand, then leaned forward so he could take Naruto's weight off of one arm long enough to plug the key into the lock, turn it with the doorknob, and slip inside. As he pulled the key out and turned toward the apartment's interior, he could feel his teammate trembling, and then that mysterious red chakra leaked out again.

Like a switch had been hit and Naruto was suddenly electric, he wrenched himself away from Sasuke, almost crumpling to the floor when his right leg wouldn't support him as much as he'd obviously hoped it would. Naruto faced Sasuke like he was waiting for the axe to fall, head drooping and golden bangs hiding his eyes while his hands clenched into trembling fists at his sides.

Sasuke set his feet apart and crossed his arms over his chest, surreptitiously rubbing at them to relieve the ache that had built while he was toting his teammate's heavy butt up the stairs. "So? Why the hell would you be used to getting the crap kicked out of you? You're better than that."

Naruto flashed him a surprised glance at the offhand compliment, but a shadow fell over those blue eyes almost immediately afterward. "_Shit_," Naruto whispered softly but emphatically. The red chakra was seething visibly over his skin, and Sasuke's eyes widened as the gash on Naruto's forehead knit itself together.

"Naruto?" He hadn't realized how rarely he used Naruto's actual name until he noticed how strange it felt rolling off his tongue. Or maybe it was his tone that felt strange; he hadn't sounded that shocked or concerned in a long time. He'd thought he might have lost the knack for it.

"Shit," Naruto said again, but this time it was resigned, like Fate had just kicked him down a flight of stairs and he could see the inevitable pile of broken glass at the bottom. Then, to Sasuke's bewilderment, tan fingers tugged up a white t-shirt, revealing a toned stomach that Sasuke remembered from that one time Sakura had dragged them to an onsen - and a glowing scarlet spiral seal.

He found himself stepping forward, fascinated, his hand reaching toward the luminous mark, and Naruto stayed where he was and let him. Which was another shock in a night absolutely full of them. His fingers brushed the seal, but he quickly yanked them back. It had been like sticking his hand into a stove. A hostile stove.

His gaze lifted to find Naruto's eyes on him, sad and wiser than he'd ever given him credit for. "What the hell is it?"

Naruto sighed. "And you're supposed to be a genius? It's the Kyuubi. The Fourth Hokage sealed it into me. Its chakra leaks out sometimes when I get too worked up, or when I'm seriously injured. It can heal me, but it costs me energy in the long run." Naruto swayed on his feet, dropping the hem of his shirt as he stumbled, and Sasuke reached out automatically to catch him, but Naruto jerked away. "Please, just go. I get enough shit from the villagers, I don't need it from you, too."

Sasuke watched, mouth hanging open just a little (a _little_! Uchihas do _not_ gape!), as Naruto made his way to the wall opposite the front door, fumbled around for a second, and then opened a door that had been completely invisible. Naruto stood for a second in the doorway, leaning against the jamb and looking out at him, blinking hazily. "Hey, can you tell Kakashi-sensei that I probably won't make the meeting tomorrow? Thanks." Then the door swung shut behind him.

At the click of the hidden latch, Sasuke found that he could suddenly move again. He held his stinging hand up in front of his face, but it didn't look burned. Sinking onto the couch in the center of the room and ignoring the groan of its ancient springs, he focused on the sounds from Naruto's concealed bedroom until he sensed his teammate falling into bed.

He continued to focus until Naruto's chakra pattern had settled into the low-level hum that signified sleep. Then, he rose and strode to the hidden doorway. _Where was that damned switch again?_ Naruto had showed it to him once, during one of his sick-day visits, but hadn't explained why he needed it. He left it open when he was home, only closing it when he was out of the flat. Sasuke had assumed it was for some added security or something - hell, he had ninja traps set up all around his own place - but that the blonde was such an idiot that he'd gotten the wrong idea.

Reaching behind a picture frame, Sasuke thought _aha!_ and twisted the tiny knob his fingers had discovered. The door popped open. He stepped inside and was rewarded with the sight of Naruto splayed fully-clothed across his bed as if he had fallen and decided against expending the effort it would take to stand up again.

Heeding those strange feelings in his chest, he removed Naruto's shoes and weapons pouches, followed by his shirt. The shorts he couldn't bring himself to touch, for reasons he couldn't quite explain to himself. He went to the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth, dampened it, and brought it back to Naruto's bedside, where he proceeded to sponge the dirt out of the worst of Naruto's wounds.

He reached into his own weapons pouch and fished out a tin of bruise salve, which he spread over the blotches that were beginning to form on Naruto's extremities, working it in with his fingers while mentally apologizing over and over again to his teammate for not stopping everything sooner. He had been avoiding Naruto's ribs because he was fairly certain a few of them were broken, and he would have to wrap them with tape to immobilize them.

Tentatively, he reached toward the green-purple bruise that covered most of Naruto's side, but just as he touched it there was a surge of the angry red chakra and Naruto's unconscious mouth let out a feral growl that spoke directly to the caveman part of his brain. Sasuke suddenly found himself by the door without a conscious memory of his legs moving him there. Looking back over his shoulder, he perceived an almost-visible cloud of red chakra coalesce over Naruto's ribs, and he felt the hair that had stood up on the back of his neck begin to settle back down.

Unsure of who or what he might be addressing, he said, "Uh, I'll be going then. I'll come back tomorrow." He winced at the fact that he'd almost added "if that's alright;" an Uchiha never asked permission, not even from supernatural energy entities inhabiting the bodies of their best friends. He slipped out the door and felt instantly better once it clicked closed, forming an admittedly flimsy barrier between him and whatever was in charge of the body in the room behind him.

After dropping Naruto's key ring on the kitchen counter, he flipped the lock on the front door before stepping out, and then he double-checked it to make sure it was actually locked. Any villagers too stupid to heed his warning would definitely be too stupid to find Naruto's hidden room, but he was worried about his teammate nonetheless.

As he trudged down the stairs and out into the street toward his house, hands in pockets, he considered the implications of what Naruto had revealed to him. All the years of shunning and angry looks made sudden horrible sense, not that he himself had been paying too much attention at the time.

But now there were these new feelings to consider. They couldn't, of course, be allowed to stay in his head, but they definitely existed. And it seemed that Naruto was infinitely more powerful than he had ever believed, which would make him a more than worthy opponent in Sasuke's quest to become stronger.

Something nagged for his attention, something he had been trying to ignore, but since Uchihas weren't cowards he forced his thoughts toward it. Why had Naruto being injured made him feel . . . the way it had? He had no idea what it meant; he was out of practice with the whole 'feelings' thing. Maybe he should ask Sakura.

Hmm, that was something to connect it to. He remembered from the times when Sakura would prattle on about how much she loved him that she would be clutching at her heart as if in pain, in a similar manner to how he had found himself at the sight of the villagers attacking Naruto. Did that mean he loved Naruto?

What a strange concept. And completely unacceptable. There was no room in his head or his future for a supposedly all-consuming emotion like love. He stepped up onto his own front porch and opened his door, stepping inside before closing it and leaning against it, considering the idea as he stared into the haunted darkness of his house.

The main problem with being in love with Naruto, aside from the fact that he didn't have time for it, would be Naruto's own reaction. As far as love went, the blonde was still in love with Sakura, who was in love with him, Sasuke. What a mess it would be if Sasuke found himself in love with Naruto.

_Not a mess_, said a voice in the back of his head. _Triangles are the neatest thing about math. Practically perfection._ He told the voice to shut up. It didn't matter anyway. He pushed away from the door, kicked his shoes off in his entryway and made his way to his bathroom, where he showered away the day's workout, and then slipped into bed, still wondering how he could possibly be in love with Naruto.


	3. Chapter 3

The afternoon sun threw long tree shadows over the training ground, but neither of the boys noticed the dark stripes slipping over their skins as they danced back and forth, punching and kicking, ducking and dodging.

Sasuke grabbed the fist that Naruto had aimed at his head and spun with it, using its momentum to flip Naruto over his head to land flat on the ground. Or at least, that was the idea, but Naruto landed on his feet and quickly crouched to sweep Sasuke's feet out from underneath him so that it was the raven-haired boy who found himself on his back in the warm grass. Before he could gather air back into his lungs, Naruto had seated himself on his stomach, hooking his legs around Sasuke's thighs and pinning his arms to the ground above his head with one hand.

This was standard procedure for their spars; they would duke it out until one of them managed to force the other to stop moving, be it on the ground or against a tree, or even with a kunai to the throat. What Naruto did next was out of character.

He leaned forward until his face was hovering just above Sasuke's, breath ghosting across his cheek. His free hand trailed over Sasuke's cheekbone, then down to trace over Sasuke's neck before splaying flat over his chest. Suddenly, Naruto's hand vanished into his weapons pouch and returned with a kunai, which he used to cut open Sasuke's shirt.

Sasuke glanced down at his unexpectedly bare chest and then back up to meet Naruto's eyes. Their blue had darkened, just like the sky above them was moving toward evening, and their expression was indecipherable. The hand replaced the kunai in the pouch, and then returned to its exploration of his chest.

Sitting up, Naruto's other hand joined it, freeing Sasuke's arms, but all thoughts of movement were being driven out of Sasuke's head by the obscene teasing things Naruto was doing to his nipples and the tickling sensation of those callused hands over his slightly ticklish ribs. Against his will, he moaned and arched his back at the sheer sensation of someone else touching him without malicious intent. It had been years.

The hands inched back upward, coming to rest on the ground on either side of Sasuke's head. Naruto lowered himself deliberately, like time had slowed down and he was moving underwater, and Sasuke was suddenly consumed by the need to be touched again. His teammate's head passed through a ray of light, turning his hair briefly to molten gold until he lowered himself further and his head returned to shadow.

His face was only inches away. "Naruto, I . . ."

* * * * *

The shrieking of the alarm clock three inches from his face woke Naruto with a gasp, followed by a fit of inventive swearing. He pounded the 'off' button until it shut up, then tried to roll over and return to sleep and the fabulous dream. Unfortunately, his broken rib protested at this act, so he ended up flat on his back again, staring at the pattern of cracks in his ceiling, trying to recapture what was already trickling away.

He fumed silently at the alarm clock and was about to get out of bed and ready for the day when his brain finished waking up. _Broken rib. Right. Not going out today, then. Damn_.

He lay in bed for a few more seconds, stretching his arms sideways and arching his back until it popped, sleepily enjoying the feel of his smooth sheets on his skin. Then his brain woke up a little more. Since when did he sleep without a shirt on? Or his cap? And how did he get into bed anyway?

He focused his mind, trying to recapture memories from the previous evening. He'd almost lost control while sparring with Sasuke, and then had been confronted by those villagers who had probably given him a concussion that Kyuubi had had to fix. After that his memory got a little hazy.

_Let's see. They were beating the shit out of me, and then they stopped. Why did they stop? There was an angry god. Yeah, that sounds about right. It commanded them to leave me alone and drove them away. And then it turned to me and I saw . . ._

Naruto froze in mid-stretch. He had seen Sasuke. Sasuke had come to his rescue, and had helped him back to his place. His mind leaping ahead, he concluded that Sasuke must have undressed him. Why had he done that?

_Wait, wait, rewind. There was an important bit in the middle that got skipped_. Sasuke must have wanted an explanation for why those villagers had wanted to beat the shit out of him, and for why he hadn't been fighting back. Had he supplied Sasuke with said explanations?

Focusing again, he felt color drain from his face as he recalled pulling up his shirt, revealing the seal, Sasuke reaching out to stroke it, then jerking away in . . . what? Fear? Disgust? _Damn_. Everything was ruined. He'd never get Sasuke now, erotic dreams notwithstanding.

So how should he go about this? Should he try to talk to Sasuke about it? Yeah, he could just imagine that conversation going well. It would be a rare treat for Sasuke to show any emotion at all, but Naruto didn't think he could keep it together if the one person whose acceptance he'd been working on his entire life rejected him totally.

Maybe he could just pretend like it never happened. That might work. It wasn't like Sasuke had time for anything besides his quest for vengeance. Anyway, his acknowledgement of Naruto was so vague on the best of days that the miniscule detail of harboring a demon that had wreaked havoc on the village probably wouldn't change anything.

At least he didn't have to fear Sasuke telling anyone else. He never hung out with the rest of the genin, never got drunk and spilled awkward secrets. It was an act of purest optimism whenever Naruto called him his best friend, and that wasn't only because no one else was clamoring for the job. They simply had more in common with each other than with anyone else.

Forcing himself to ignore the scream of complaint from his still-healing rib, he swung his legs off the side of the bed and sat up, planting his elbows on his knees and hunching over so he could rub his face with his hands. Frowning, he rubbed again, aware that there should have been at least a scab from the cut he had received at the end of that villager's boot, but his fingers met with only smooth skin.

Frowning harder, he examined his arms and legs for the anticipated bruising, but the blotches were greenish-yellow and fading, as if he had gotten them weeks ago. Only a bruise salve would have had that effect, and he certainly hadn't had time to apply any before his concussion-induced loss of consciousness. More of Sasuke's work? But why?

The sound of his front door being kicked in brought him bolt upright next to his bed, though he doubled over and had to bite his lip to stifle the groan of pain his rib triggered. A single set of feet paced around his living room and into his kitchen, the only rooms open to people who didn't know where the hidden switch was.

"The demon's not here, and there's no sign of whatever the hell it conjured last night." The voice belonged to one of the villagers who had accosted him the night before, he thought, the one who had thrown a shuriken only to receive Sasuke's kunai to the shoulder in return.

More feet stepped into the flat. He strained his perceptions and figured there were maybe five people. Next came the sounds of wholesale destruction as the villagers ripped apart couch cushions, overturned tables and chairs, and emptied cupboards onto the floor. Naruto sat back down on his bed with a muted sigh, unable to move quickly thanks to his rib, and unsure what good he could do against them anyway.

After about ten minutes, the only voice he had heard spoke again. "That should do it. Let's get out of here before it comes back." All the feet retreated toward the front door and started down the hallway outside. Naruto didn't hear the door close, and he assumed it was because when it had been kicked open, it had broken off its hinges.

He stood again, more cautiously this time, and moved to his bedroom door. He opened it a crack, peeked out, and then swung it wide with a muttered expletive. The room was a giant mess. He put a hand to the wall beside the door to steady himself, then jerked it away when it landed in something wet. For a brief hideous instant he thought it was blood, then common sense kicked in and he noticed the smell of fresh paint. They had graffiti'd his walls again. Son of a bitch.

Repressing another sigh, he was about to get to work on cleaning up when his rib stabbed at him again, reminding him that his flat wasn't the only thing they'd done damage to. Trying not to give in to the overwhelming urge to be emo, he slipped back in to his room and firmly closed the door. The mess would still be there when he'd healed more. As for him, he'd be going back to bed until Kyuubi finished healing his body. Everything else could wait.

* * * * *

Sasuke jerked awake, sweating. No ray of sunlight penetrated his inner sanctum, of course, but the amount of light being muffled by his curtains told him he was going to be late for their team meeting if he didn't get moving. _Which is fine by me_, he thought. If he threw himself into the activity of getting ready, maybe it would help him forget the dream he'd just had.

Unfortunately, the routine/rut he'd worn for himself over the years meant that he needed to spare very little brainpower to think about brushing his teeth and washing his face and eating breakfast. He had plenty left over to contemplate the dream he'd been having.

The way Naruto's fingers had felt, spreading fire through his veins through some erotic form of osmosis, was . . . disturbing, to say the least. Half of it could probably be explained away by the fact that no one had willingly touched him outside of a sparring match since his mother had been killed; it had been years since anyone besides fangirls had even offered him a hug.

He shuddered with disgust at himself. He had no time for self-pity, and _definitely_ had no time for something as weak as a _hug_. These emotions had to go, and they had to go _now_.

As he strapped his weapons pouch to his leg, he focused on making them disappear, to vanish back to whatever nether dimension of human sentimentality that they had spontaneously erupted from.

They wouldn't go. As soon as he thought he was alone again in the frigid void of his own mind with only his constant boiling hate and anger for company, they would creep back in around the edges like sunlight around a carelessly open curtain. Stopping just inside his front door he clenched his fists and shut his eyes, focusing on gathering the sunny emotions into a pile and having a mental Sasuke-chibi set them alight with a mini-fire jutsu. No good; when the sweating chibi wiped a hand over its singed lips the emotions were still there, glowing almost mockingly and dispelling the mental darkness he had worked so hard to gather at his brother's final request.

He leaned his head against the front door, then thunked it on the dark carved wood a few times, though this was more out of frustration than out of any thought that it might work. _All right, so they won't go away. At least I can stuff them somewhere less distracting_. He conjured a mental trunk of plain dark wood with brass hinges and had the chibi gather up all the bright emotions and memories of last night's dream and dumped them inside. The lid swung closed and the chibi pushed it into a dark corner and sat on top, giving him a thumb's-up. His mind was dark and uncluttered again.

Opening his eyes and stepping away from the door, he thought about Naruto. The trunk gave a faint throb, but other than that he felt only his accustomed blankness. Good.

He stepped out the door and made his way to the bridge where he discovered that he was indeed a few minutes late, but Sakura didn't make a fuss about it. It didn't matter, because Kakashi-sensei didn't show up for another half-hour anyway.

_Poof_, and there he was. Their sensei leaned nonchalantly against the bridge railing and surveyed his team. "Where's Naruto?" he said, his mask moving slightly as his hidden mouth formed the words that attempted to sound unconcerned but failed.

Sasuke realized he would have to say something. "He's not coming today. He wasn't well last night, so I said I'd stop by and see him later." There, that had sounded sufficiently unconcerned, right?

Kakashi-sensei was looking at him, head tilted to the side speculatively, before he spoke again. "I guess we'll put the meeting off until tomorrow. Consider today a day off, but try to get in a workout somewhere, okay? See you tomorrow. Sasuke, a word, please." This had been addressed to his back as he and Sakura had turned to walk back into the village.

Sakura looked disappointed that she was missing the rare chance to walk alone with him - alright, maybe not _with_ him, but _next to_ him, anyway - but she waved and headed off as Sasuke turned back around, not making a motion to return to his sensei. It came to him that Kakashi-sensei must have known all along that Naruto harbored the Kyuubi, yet he had never told any of them or offered Naruto some form of protection. Then he thought that Kakashi-sensei probably _had_ offered protection, but Naruto, that stubborn idiot, had refused it.

"Sasuke-kun, tell me what happened." It was a direct order, and Sasuke could tell that his sensei hadn't been fooled. Hell, he probably already knew what had happened and was trying to see if Sasuke would admit to knifing two villagers.

_Fine._ "Naruto forgot his jacket at the training grounds. I was headed toward his house to return it when I came upon four villagers kicking the shit out of him. I encouraged them to stop vocally, but when they refused I defended him. Then I took him back to his place. I think he had a concussion, but he said it would be okay because he HAS THE KYUUBI INSIDE HIM!" He stopped; his voice had risen to an almost-shout. Anger had always been an acceptable emotion, though.

Kakashi-sensei gazed at him. It was difficult to tell what he might be thinking, since the only visible part of his face was a single eye, and that eye was suddenly cold and impassive. "So?" Sasuke had never heard his sensei's voice so cold before, and he felt a tingle of fear shoot down his spine. "Does that make a difference to you?"

Sasuke blinked, realizing that Kakashi-sensei was asking him what he thought about Naruto now that he knew the secret, and he remembered how important the concept of 'team' was to his sensei. And, apparently, to him as well. "Difference? Why would it make a difference? The only thing that matters is that some stupid drunk villagers think they can beat the hell out of my teammate whenever the fancy takes them. If it weren't for the Kyuubi, he might have _died_. And apparently, the Hokage is perfectly alright with letting one of her shinobi get _repeatedly_ pushed to the brink of life and death."

The unfriendly look left Kakashi-sensei's eyes, replaced by something tired and old. "There's nothing we can do, Sasuke. We've tried. It was the 4th Hokage's intention, when he sealed the Kyuubi inside Naruto as a baby, that Naruto be treated as a hero who saved the village from a terrible fate, but the villagers refuse to understand. The shinobi do understand, and a few of them usually watch over Naruto on his way home so that stuff like what happened last night doesn't happen. We just thought that you'd spar with him until after sunset and then go to Ichiraku's with him, like you usually do. No villager would dare touch him while you're with him."

Sasuke felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. "So it was my fault?" he said, feeling two inches tall. "I think I upset him or something, because he started leaking red chakra and his pupils went all funny, and then he took off crying." He stared at his feet, seeing again Naruto's battered body lying on the streetlight-lit pavement the previous night. That could have been prevented if it weren't for him? The emotion-holding trunk in the darkest corner of his mind gave another pulse, but he still felt nothing. His mind was icy silence.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he looked up to meet his sensei's serious grey one-eyed gaze. "There's nothing you could have done. You didn't know. That was a part of the 3rd Hokage's orders. When he saw that the villagers would insist on treating Naruto like an outcast, he commanded them to keep the reason behind it a secret from the next generation. That still stands, you know. You can't even tell Sakura."

Sasuke let out a bark of what might pass for laughter in anyone else. "You think I'd tell? And make his life harder than it already is? I know he calls me a bastard, and usually I am one, but even I wouldn't do a crappy thing like that."

Kakashi-sensei gave his shoulder a final pat and stepped back. "See you tomorrow morning then." And _poof_, he was gone, leaving Sasuke coughing and waving away transportation-jutsu smoke.

When he could breathe again, Sasuke turned back around and headed in the direction of Naruto's place. As he walked, he digested the heap of backstory Kakashi-sensei had shoved down his throat. Did it matter to him that Naruto hosted the demon that had flattened half the village nearly thirteen years ago? He was still _Naruto_, the annoying idiot who dragged him through life at top speed, occasionally forcing him to participate despite his resolve to live only for revenge. Just because he had just found out about it didn't change who Naruto was.

He found himself in the hallway of Naruto's floor, with only a vague memory of climbing the stairs that had seemed so endless the previous night. He checked the mental trunk to make sure it was securely fastened, then stepped forward to knock on Naruto's door.

Except there was no door. Dropping into a defensive crouch with his back to the wall opposite Naruto's doorway, Sasuke drew a kunai, prepared for attack from any direction. He sent his senses out but all he received was the muffled sense that Naruto was still safely asleep in his concealed room, with no indication that anyone else was present. Naruto's chakra signature left a faint metallic tang in his mouth, and he deduced that the Kyuubi's energy was still healing his teammate.

Still holding his kunai, he moved cautiously forward through the doorway, stepping carefully over the door that usually inhabited it which now resided on the floor. His eyes widened as he looked around the living room. Naruto's houseplants had been smashed. The coffee table had been flipped, its contents strewn across the room. The couch had been completely dismantled, its padding leaking out of multiple ragged stab wounds. He crunched over glass from the broken window to the kitchen, where he saw that all the cupboards had been emptied onto the floor and left gaping open, and the contents of the refrigerator had been emptied on top of the mess.

Turning his disbelieving gaze to the walls, he saw that Naruto's carefully-hung pictures had been ripped down and awful things had been written in dripping red paint. Briefly panicking, he sent his perceptions to double-check Naruto's room, but his teammate really did seem to be simply sleeping.

Letting out a growl, he replaced his kunai and searched through the wreckage on the kitchen floor for a few unbroken containers. He took them back into the living room and did his best to repot Naruto's plants, gently holding them straight as he scooped as much soil as he could back in around them. He knew how much his teammate had treasured these living things that didn't shrink from him in hatred, but until now he hadn't known exactly why.

He set the battered plants in their makeshift temporary housing out of the way on Naruto's balcony, then rolled up his sleeves and returned to do battle with the consequences of prejudice without taking the time to wonder why he was willing to. His only thought was that he might finish before Naruto even knew what had happened.


	4. Chapter 4

When Naruto woke up again, the sunlight through his curtains told him it was late afternoon. He stretched again, this time arching his back to test his rib, but it seemed to be completely healed. Great, now he could go out and clean up his home for the millionth time.

He stood and hitched up his shorts, acknowledging that he had been wearing them for a few days now but deciding that it made no difference, with the amount of work he still had to do before his flat was presentable again. _Not that I'm expecting guests_, he thought ruefully as he clicked the latch that opened his door from the inside and stepped out.

He stared around in confusion at the unexpected orderliness. Had this morning been a dream, then? No, he could still faintly smell paint, though the walls no longer bore the dripping hate slogans. He took a few more steps away from his doorway into his living room.

The floor had been swept, the coffee table had been righted and all his coasters and magazines and junk had been rearranged on its surface. He could see the shadows cast by his plants out on the balcony, and there were some barely noticeable scars where someone had sewn his couch back together. Even his pictures were back on his walls, though a few of them had switched places.

_Kyuubi? You know anything about this?_ He didn't often instigate conversation with his demonic houseguest, who wasn't usually inclined to be helpful anyway, but if someone was fucking with his head then it concerned the demon fox as well.

There was no response, which could mean anything from 'figure it out yourself, idiot' to 'do I look like I care,' but it also meant that no one had messed with him, that there was no danger in his flat, and that someone had indeed come in and fixed his place up while he was sleeping.

Belatedly, he realized that he should have been using his senses. Just because the villagers usually left him alone for a few weeks after an act of mass vandalism didn't mean they always would. Following his own advice, he was startled to discover that there was indeed a person in his flat, lying on his couch out of his line of vision.

Heart pumping, he slid silently forward until he could see over his battle-scarred couch's high back, where he received the shock of his life. Uchiha Sasuke was stretched out on the sagging and mended cushions, smeared with dirt and white paint, fast asleep.

For a brief second he thought he might still be dreaming. Then the sleeping figure on his couch stirred, scratched at its nose and then relaxed again. Naruto leaned on the couch back, folding his arms and resting his chin on them as he stared at his teammate.

He looked different. Relaxed, in a way that Naruto had never seen him before. He seemed younger, the planes of his face less harsh, and Naruto wondered if this is what he might've looked like if Itachi hadn't ruined everything.

He tore his gaze away from his entrancing teammate and sent it around the room again, taking in a second time all that Sasuke had done. A memory popped into his head, of him asking Sasuke why he had protected him from Haku's ice needles as warm lifeblood dripped down onto his face, and of Sasuke replying that he didn't know, that his body had just moved on its own.

So why help him last night? And why clean up his place? It didn't put Sasuke any closer to achieving his goal. Another thought struck him: he'd cleaned up the place _after_ Naruto had showed him the seal. So that meant he didn't care about the Kyuubi? _He obviously cared enough to spend his day sewing a couch back together_, Naruto mused as he studied the careful stitching that ran beneath his nose. Hell, if he ever needed stitches while on a mission, he was going to beg Sasuke to do it.

Unable to distract himself any longer, Naruto's eyes returned to Sasuke. He allowed them to study the strangely peaceful face, then to trail slowly down the paint-splattered blue shirt that hid the chest he had so violently bared in his dreams last night. The pale arms crossed behind the black-silk-covered head were criss-crossed with faint veins and taut with muscle, and Naruto felt his mouth watering at the sight of the powerful legs that emerged out of the dirt-streaked white shorts (though that last was probably the Kyuubi's fault; sometimes its predatory impulses leaked through).

He glanced back up at Sasuke's hair, and his fingers tingled with a need to run through it, to smooth it away from that serene face. He knew his teammate was a light sleeper, but could a little touch hurt? It looked so smooth. His fingers twitched, but he made no move to ruin the moment.

Sasuke's breath hitched in his throat and his eyes fluttered open, and Naruto found himself staring into the black wells he'd been so careful to avoid during their spar yesterday. Unbidden, the image of stargazing off his balcony in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep rose up in his mind, and the feeling that if he somehow could let go he could fall upward into the vast glimmer-studded expanse. Then Sasuke blinked again and the feeling was gone. He took a few steps back as Sasuke sat up, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

Naruto had no idea what to say. This was the person he figured he might be in love with, who usually barely noticed he existed, who fought beside him and against him, who had saved him and cared for him last night when he desperately needed it, and who had wasted a day off to repair his living room despite learning about the Kyuubi. How could a person express the depth of gratitude he felt?

He raised a hand and scratched the back of his neck nervously. "Uh, thanks-" he started to say, but Sasuke waved a hand to cut him off, standing so that they faced each other with the couch between them.

"Kakashi-sensei rescheduled the team meeting for tomorrow morning. Today is a day off. See you tomorrow." Then he turned his back and walked to the door, which had been rehung, and let himself out.

Naruto stared at the closed door for a few seconds before his stomach growled and he remembered that he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. Hoping there was still something edible left in his kitchen, he turned and left the living room, wondering where the hell they were supposed to go from here.

* * * * *

Sasuke spent the rest of his day off at the training grounds behind his family's holdings. He took his frustration out on the rope-wrapped posts as he beat them until his shins were bruised and his knuckles were bleeding. How could he have been so careless as to fall asleep inside Naruto's apartment? His emotional trunk was still a new idea, and he'd never sleep-tested it.

When he'd woken up to find Naruto staring down at him, the dream he'd had last night had come back vividly and he'd had to fight to keep a blush from rising in his cheeks. Naruto hovering above him, Naruto's hands grazing his skin, Naruto's face lowering to his in slow motion. Apparently, the mental trunk came unlocked while he slept. This could present problems on overnight missions.

He pummeled the post with his elbows, the only body parts that weren't already stinging. He'd fled from Naruto's apartment with as much grace as he could muster, but to be discovered while sleeping hadn't said much for his so-called ninja skills. It was just that he'd worked so hard to repair the damage to Naruto's place, and the sun through the balcony window had felt so good, and he could sense his teammate sleeping peacefully in the next room, and it had felt so . . . _right_.

_Excuses, excuses_, he berated himself, switching to shuriken target practice when his elbows couldn't take any more. Just because Naruto was a teammate didn't mean he should be able to sneak up on him. It wasn't like he . . . _trusted_ him or something. Was it? Maybe he did, at that.

He'd left the mental trunk open while he practiced, on an experimental basis, to test whether he was capable of using emotion the way Naruto appeared to do. So far, all they seemed to be doing was distracting him, with images from the dream popping up at inopportune times and mixing with the memory of Naruto in his apartment that afternoon.

Bitterness flooded him as he remembered Naruto's faltering attempts to thank him. If it hadn't been for him, the whole thing would never have happened in the first place. For the first time, he wondered if he deserved to have a friend like Naruto. He had been taking it for granted their entire time as a team that _of course_ Naruto wanted to be his friend; he was powerful, and everyone loved power, didn't they?

But Naruto didn't seem to care about that at all. _And why would he? He's storing more power than I could ever aspire to_, Sasuke thought, mind shifting uncomfortably away from the idea that Naruto might one day realize that Sasuke was a lousy friend and give up on him as a lost cause.

It hit him, as his last shuriken thunked into the center of a target behind a rock, that maybe that was why he'd had the dream. It wasn't _Naruto_ he was drawn to, it was the power he embodied.

This thought transfixed him for a few seconds as he stood in the silence of the training grounds and his body throbbed and ached from his abuse. Then his mouth twisted in a grimace of disgust. As if he would rely on anyone but himself to avenge his family. Especially Naruto. Sure, the blonde had overpowered him in the dream, but he hadn't been using the Kyuubi's chakra.

That left only one other explanation, but Sasuke refused to acknowledge it. There was _no way_ he would admit, even to himself, that he had feelings for the blonde idiot. _At least, not while awake_, he thought grimly as he rambled around the training clearing and wrenched his throwing stars out of the wooden targets. It remained to be seen whether or not he had any control over what happened inside his head while he slept.

* * * * *

It was like a repeat of the end of their last sparring match, but this time when Sasuke pinned Naruto's hands to the tree above his head, Naruto became pliant and languid, his legs rising to wrap around Sasuke's waist. At first Sasuke braced himself against the force Naruto was exerting, thinking that he might be attempting a Greco-Roman wrestling takedown, but all Naruto did was pull him closer, until he was seated between his legs, chest to chest.

The effort of their spar had left them both panting for breath, and Sasuke could feel the pounding of Naruto's heart through the material of both of their shirts. Trying not to be too rough, Sasuke braced Naruto's back against the tree and released Naruto's hands. He was half-expecting a renewed offensive and a continuation of their sparring session, but the tan arms floated down to settle around his neck and pulled him even closer.

The grin on Naruto's face wasn't his usual bright rejection of all things sad, but rather a lazy smirk that was edging on sultry. Sasuke felt captivated by it. This time it was his hands that moved without him telling them to, framing the whiskered face and sliding over the clavicles exposed by the stretched-out collar of the white t-shirt.

Naruto's laugh trickled through the clearing like the sound of a mountain stream as Sasuke's traitorous hands slid up under the t-shirt, making the spiral pattern bulge outward as his fingers played over the crevasses it hid. He looked questioningly back up into those blue blue eyes.

"Ticklish, sorry. Don't stop," his teammate said in a laughter-filled growl, before leaning forward and sinking his teeth into Sasuke's earlobe.

* * * * *

_Shit_, thought Sasuke as he sat up in bed and shut off his alarm clock, shoving at his eyeballs with the heels of his palms. _Shit, shit, shit. All of you, back in the box_.

* * * * *

Naruto hopped from rooftop to rooftop on his way to the red crescent bridge, his mind humming with the multiple possibilities of how Sasuke would react to him today, and the infinite permutations that he could choose from for his own behavior in reaction to that. Sasuke could ignore him, yell at him, snub him, expose him in front of Sakura, stab him, rip his shirt off and snog him senseless . . . the possibilities were endless. Though that last might have been _extremely_ wishful thinking.

And all of those would only be outward acts that might not even reflect what Sasuke really felt. If Sasuke felt at all. He'd been fairly certain until recently that Sasuke wasn't capable of being normal, but then he had saved his life and repaired his apartment for no reason.

He leaped off the last building, slowing his descent down its side by sending tiny pulses of chakra out his feet, and realized that for the first time in what felt like forever, he had arrived before Sasuke. Sakura was there, on time as usual, but there was no brooding bastard leaning on the railing casting an emo shadow at her side.

Feeling a twinge of worry, Naruto strolled nonchalantly over to his pink-haired teammate. "Good morning, Sakura-chan!"

"Hi, Naruto. Feeling better today?" She seemed cheerful, willing enough to talk to him when they wouldn't be bothering her precious Sasuke-kun. The object of the stab of jealousy he felt at the thought was unclear, but that was nothing too new.

He put up his chatter screen, learning from yesterday's mistake, talking about his imaginary illness and ramen and being Hokage and beating Sasuke and a dream he'd had the night before (a made-up one; the dream he'd really had last night would have shocked the poor girl) and other meaningless things, until approaching footsteps made them both look up.

Sasuke waved a hand at both of them and went to his accustomed place on Sakura's other side, ignoring as usual the fact that both his teammates were staring at him. _So it's going to be like that, is it?_ Naruto could handle this, it was just like any other day. He studied his teammate, picking out the faint shadows under his eyes which stood out like neon signposts on his pale skin.

He studied Sasuke with his other senses, and picked up a faint vibration in his normally rock-steady chakra signature. He almost didn't notice it at all; anyone that didn't know Sasuke as well as he did would have missed it. It was there, though, and it was new and different. Naruto wondered about it, but knew that even if he asked, Sasuke would never tell him what it was about.

Naruto shrugged to himself and leaned back against the bridge railing, basking in the sunlight of the new day, waiting for Kakashi-sensei to become un-lost on the road of life.


	5. Chapter 5

Sasuke switched his alarm clock off and then fell back into bed, arms splayed out to his sides as he reviewed his latest dream. This one had incorporated the way Naruto had taken his shirt off prior to their spar last week, and had involved a lot of bare tan flesh and grooved abdominal muscles. Also tongues.

Muttering under his breath and flipping onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow in a half-hearted asphyxiation attempt, Sasuke wished that _just once_ he could actually kiss Naruto in one of these dreams, just to find out what it felt like. The dreams had danced around it for a month and half, teasing him with hands and mouths on all other shirtless body parts but excluding a good old-fashioned snog.

They hadn't had any overnight missions since that night he'd witnessed the attack on Naruto in the street. Or rather, he'd gone out of his way to prevent any missions from lasting more than a day. Sometimes, a client they were escorting would walk so excruciatingly slowly that he would want to pick them up and carry them on his back, but he instead resorted to applying false charm and concern for them sleeping overnight outdoors. It got him strange looks from his teammates, but it also got Team Seven back inside Konoha's gates before they closed for the night.

Abandoning his semi-attempted suicide, he sat up and headed for his accustomed cold shower, during which he would shove everything, all feelings and emotions and dreams and memories, back into the trunk. Unfortunately, since almost every night was accompanied by a new dream, the trunk was becoming rather full. The mental Sasuke-chibi had to sit on the trunk to get it to latch properly.

He'd tried simply imagining a larger trunk, but he ran into the same problem no matter what size container he tried to stuff everything into. The chibi had to hang around inside Sasuke's head all day, holding the trunk closed. While this wasn't nearly as distracting as actually allowing the emotions free range, it was still irritating that he had to do it at all. He suspected the chibi was secreting a hip-flask, sneaking sips from it when he wasn't paying attention.

Plus, every day it became more and more clear that even were he to give in to the annoying feelings, Naruto would never return them. He'd show up later than Naruto more often than not these days, since it took him a while to lock everything away satisfactorily, and he'd find Naruto and Sakura chatting companionably away like they hadn't a care in the world. They would of course stop as soon as he appeared, which stung just a little even with his emotions securely confined.

If Sakura was starting to return the love that Naruto had been throwing at her since before they'd even become genin, where would that leave him? Alone, just like he'd been wanting all along. The idea should have satisfied him, but enough emotion leaked through the crack under the lid before he slammed it shut to make him severely depressed about it.

It didn't help that his sparring with Naruto was deteriorating. Either the blonde idiot was improving rapidly or he himself was losing it. Oh, he was plenty sharp on missions against enemy shinobi, but when it came down to him and Naruto in the training clearing, with Naruto shirtless more often than not in the heat of late summer, he was finding it increasingly difficult to focus on the task at hand. Naruto seemed to cause him to spontaneously generate new emotions, and he had no time to shove them into the already-overstuffed trunk while he was participating in hand-to-hand combat.

The walls of the mental trunk groaned with the strain of holding everything in as he stepped off his porch and started toward Konoha's gates. They had another escort mission today, and there didn't seem to be anything he could do to keep this one from spilling over into multiple days. It was a day-and-a-half journey just to get to the destination, so that meant at least two mornings waking up in the company of others, without the cold shower and time alone to set his mental state to rights again.

He arrived at the three-story-high gates to find Sakura leaning against one with her arms crossed, studiously ignoring a tall, handsome, well-dressed brunette who was obviously their client. Damn, a male. He'd never get this one to walk faster.

He went over to stand next to his pink-haired teammate, and she shifted to lift a hand in greeting before returning to her almost sullen posture, her face a thundercloud. Sasuke glanced between her and the client, deducing that they had had some kind of argument before he'd arrived.

Speaking of the client, the man - little more than a teenager, but older than their team - was stepping up to jab him in the chest with a well-manicured finger. "Are you her teammate? The one whose approval I have to get in order to marry her?"

Sasuke stared at the man, bewildered. "Um," he said, glancing at Sakura, whose cheeks had flushed pink and whose eyes wouldn't meet his. _So it was like that, was it?_ Fine, he could protect his teammate when she needed it, whether it be from an enemy kunai or from a client bent on breaking the noninvolvement clause in his contract. "Yes," he said in a more certain voice.

His next action surprised everyone present, but none so much as himself. His arm lifted to settle around Sakura's hunched shoulders, pulling her in close to his side. Her mouth opened and she turned her face to his to object, to protest that he didn't need to go _that_ far, but he wasn't looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the client's face as it turned apoplectic and the handsome mouth opened and closed before forming any words.

"You-!"

"Morning, guys, what'd I miss?" This was from Naruto, who had come up behind the man so silently that none of them had noticed. His blue eyes took in the odd situation, widening at the sight of Sasuke's arm around Sakura's shoulders before narrowing at the way Sasuke didn't take his gaze off the man in front of them.

Sasuke could almost feel the wheels turning inside Naruto's brain. When their team had first formed, Naruto could be counted on, as regular as clockwork, to immediately jump to the wrong conclusion. The idiot had learned a lot since then.

Sakura's voice sounded almost normal, as if she weren't being hugged by her obsession of so many years. "Good morning, Naruto. As I was just telling Hayakawa-_san_ here, he needs the approval of my teammates in order to . . . date me. Because-" Here she stopped as her brain fumbled for an reason that would be convincing yet noninsulting. Shinobi who insulted their clients rarely got hired a second time.

Naruto saved them all like a champ, coming over to Sakura's other side and sliding an arm around her waist, the fingers coming to rest in between her hip and Sasuke's. "No dating unless we know it won't throw off the team dynamic. You know the rules. An unbalanced team is a vulnerable team. You should appreciate that, sir," he said, addressing the client for the first time. "If we're not an effective team who can anticipate each other's reactions to anything, we won't be able to protect you as well. That's what you hired us for, isn't it?"

The man stared between them suspiciously, taking a step back and closing his mouth. Naruto had done a beautiful job of telling the man to back off without actually threatening him, but Sasuke's surprise at Naruto's mental acuity was tempered by the feeling of internal fire that Naruto's knuckles against his hip was kindling.

They stood there facing off against each other, and Sasuke imagined tumbleweeds rolling by and cicadas chirping as the silence grew. The client opened his mouth to say something else, his face thoughtful and considering.

_Poof_. "_Ohayou gozaimasu_, Hayakawa-_san_. Thank you for your patience. Are we ready to set off?" Kakashi-sensei's visible eye smiled graciously at the client, who had spun around to stare wide-eyed at the silver-haired man that had spontaneously emerged from a cloud of smoke behind him.

"I- Um. That is, yes, I suppose so." With that response, Kakashi-sensei turned to the three genin who composed his team, his visible eyebrow spiking upwards at the united front they continued to present. "I'll take front duty, Naruto gets right flank, Sakura gets left, and Sasuke, you accompany the client. Keep an eye on the woods at the roadside. Clear?"

The genin nodded, and Kakashi-sensei turned and strode out of the gates. The client stared after him. "How did he-?"

Reluctantly disengaging himself, Sasuke grabbed him by the arm with one hand and grabbed up the client's pack with the other, handing it to the startled brunette as he dragged him through the gates after the team leader. "He's a ninja. Walk." He could feel Naruto and Sakura spill out of the gate behind them, staying back and to the sides of the road as they took off at a fast clip.

He knew he was jeopardizing Naruto's brilliant work by being so abrupt, but he couldn't help it. The physical memory of Naruto's fingers on his hips, plus a whole day spent in Naruto's company, followed by a night sleeping next to him. He didn't even know if he talked in his sleep or not. This was going to be a total disaster.

* * * * *

As he trailed behind and to the right of Sasuke and the client, Naruto gave his teammate almost as much attention as he gave to his surroundings. The strange chakra vibration he had first noted over a month ago had gotten stronger; he wondered why no one else had noticed or commented on it. Plus, his position on the flank gave him a great view of Sasuke's butt.

_Focus_. Naruto dragged his mind away from the flexing of Sasuke's toned gluteus shrouded within those incongruously erotic white shorts, back to his section of woods. He wasn't too worried about someone lying in wait for them. Even if someone was, Kakashi-sensei would sense them first from his position in front, but that didn't mean he was allowed to slack off.

Aside from the fact that Kakashi-sensei trusted them enough to spread out now, the circumstances reminded him strongly of that first escort mission to the Wave Country, which seemed so long ago. The 3rd Hokage had instituted a strict truthfulness policy since then, so that a team of genin wouldn't have to deal with a dangerous situation like that any more, but that didn't keep Naruto from remembering how he had stabbed himself through the hand to prove to Sasuke how brave he was.

_And then it healed almost immediately_, he thought with a wry twist of his lips. Which had been just as well, really, because he had needed to be in top form that mission despite the huge assist he had gotten from Kyuubi at the end.

Maybe that was Sasuke's problem. He hadn't been treating Naruto any differently than he always did, but when they sparred he seemed more and more reluctant to touch him. Ordinarily, Naruto wouldn't complain about something that meant he was closer than ever to beating Sasuke, but it wasn't worth it. What good was beating his teammate if Sasuke no longer acknowledged him as human?

Maybe the best he could hope for were the erotic dreams he had almost every night, though even they were disappointing. Their extreme distance from the reality of his life left him feeling even more depressed, and even when he was asleep he couldn't get Sasuke to kiss him. It was _his _dream, after all, so shouldn't he be able to control it just enough to finally taste Sasuke's lips? But _nooooo_, all the dreams did was tease him with composites of everything he'd managed to gather from his everyday sparring sessions. Thank Kami Sasuke took off his shirt to spar sometimes, or he wouldn't even be shirtless in his dreams.

Deep-scanning the forest on his side, he didn't sense anything but birds and small mammals going about their daily business. This made him feel secure enough to let his gaze rest on his raven-haired teammate for a little while. Naruto was hoping that if Sasuke felt the eyes on his back, he was mentally chalking it up to Sakura.

Though that area was different, too. Sakura had been friendlier to him lately, and less Sasuke-obsessed. He often caught her with a sad smile on her face as she looked at their teammate, which was a huge change from the eyelash-batting and arm-grabbing of their academy days. Sometimes he caught the sad look directed at him as well. Either way, it seemed that he and Sasuke were on a more even footing in her eyes than they had ever been before.

_Great timing, too_. Just when his female teammate and the former love of his life starts loving him back, he falls for the other one. _I must fancy challenges_. And he had thought _Sakura_ had been unattainable.

But for all that he had meant his words to the client that morning, the team dynamic _was_ shifting. Sasuke was starting to treat his teammates more like people, rather than vague annoying presences who existed to hinder his goals. Sakura was gaining strength and experience, taking on responsibilities and making plans and strategies whereas before they had all relied on Kakashi-sensei to tell them what to do.

_Everyone's growing up, except for me_, came the self-pitying thought. He shook it off. Would the Naruto of a year ago have reacted the way he had this morning to the sight of Sasuke's arm around Sakura's shoulders? No. He would have flipped out and challenged Sasuke to a fight for Sakura's affections, and he would have lost, plus blowing it in front of the client. He, too, was learning.

And wasn't the look on Sakura's face priceless, with Sasuke defending her from the amorous client like an emo knight in shining armor? Naruto would have expected ecstasy, but she had just looked mortified. Maybe he should ask her what was up, if he could pry the leech-like Hayakawa-_san_ off of her when they stopped.

He was surveying his side of the road again when Kakashi-sensei called a halt for a lunch break. They formed up, surrounding the client much closer in, as they followed a path into the woods on Sakura's side. After a few minutes, they emerged into a sunlit clearing dominated by a few large boulders.

Kakashi-sensei leapt to the top of the largest boulder and scanned the forest in every direction. "All clear, for now. Eat quickly." But that was only a standard sop to the client. If there had really been anything out there, Kakashi-sensei would have made some seemingly off-hand comment about what one of them had brought for lunch, thereby indicating the direction the threat would be coming from.

As expected, the client glued himself to Sakura the second she let herself down onto the grass of the clearing. Looking around for Sasuke, Naruto spied him atop one of the other boulders. He decided to test the conclusion he'd come to about Sasuke's aversion to contact with him, and forced chakra into his feet so he could climb up the boulder's face to join him.

The look on Hayakawa-_san_'s face at his walking sideways up a vertical surface had nothing to do with his decision. _Okay, maybe a little_, he thought a bit smugly as the posh client's eyes bugged out and he started jabbering excitedly to Sakura, who looked as if she wished the earth would open and swallow her. Or maybe swallow him.

He knew Sakura was just as capable as he was of coming up to bother their third teammate, but for some reason she'd decided not to today. Something else to add to the list of things he was going to ask her the next time he got a chance, but for now, he had Sasuke to deal with.

"Oi, bastard, why are you so antisocial?" he asked cheerfully as he plopped down next to the pale-skinned teenager. The only response was a miffed 'hn,' but again, that was normal, and this particular grunt hadn't seemed threatening or disagreeable.

So Naruto proceeded to devour his bento box, keeping the chatter to a minimum. This had worked before, on that day he had almost lost it during their spar, but he had forgotten until later that Sasuke had actually _asked him_ if something was wrong when he didn't chatter.

When this failed to work, and Kakashi-sensei showed signs of wanting to move along, Naruto grew desperate. What excuse could he use to touch Sasuke to judge his reaction? Suddenly recalling the strained vibrations, like the leash of a dog who sees a cat atop a fence but can't . . . quite . . . reach it, he clapped a hand to Sasuke's shoulder and said in a serious voice, "Look, Sasuke, you know you can tell me if anything is bothering you, right? Maybe I could help."

The old Sasuke would have simply shrugged the hand off with another expressive grunt. The suspected anti-Kyuubi/anti-Naruto Sasuke should surely react more strongly, like to flinch or strike out. What Naruto didn't expect was for Sasuke to suddenly freeze solid, with his gaze fixed on some point on the other side of the clearing, and for the odd chakra vibrations to escalate almost violently.

Naruto froze too, staring from Sasuke to where Sasuke was looking so fixedly and then, perceiving nothing, back to Sasuke again. Then Sasuke did the unexpected again. He _laughed_. Only it wasn't like normal-person laughter; it was a sort of involuntary bark mixed with the slightest of whimpers. Naruto snatched his hand away, mildly freaked out.

He opened his mouth to comment, though he had no clue what he could say in a world where Uchihas both laughed and cried - at the same time, even - but Kakashi-sensei called, "Time to move out, men," and Sasuke leaped off of the rock like it was on fire.

They followed the path through the woods back to the main road, where they automatically rotated positions. Sakura ran point while Kakashi-sensei took Naruto's spot on the right flank. Naruto moved in to escort position and Sasuke dropped back to left flank with an almost perceptible air of gratitude at the solitude it afforded.

As the afternoon wore on and Naruto fended off the client's increasingly personal questions about Sakura and her relationships with her teammates, he wished almost desperately for that skin-crawling feeling caused by a pair of eyes watching him, but it seemed that Sasuke had better things to look at than him.

Not that the client noticed his despair. Hayakawa-_san_ was much too occupied making comments about how nice Sakura's backside looked in her red dress, or how those boots made her legs look miles long, heedless of the fact that her fists were clenching at her sides.

"She can hear you, you know," Naruto spoke up, aware that client murder was frowned upon and also that Sakura was very close to such an act.

"But I'm telling the truth! She is so beautiful! Please give your consent to our marriage. I will discuss it with my father, and the next time he takes a state visit to Konoha he can make the arrangements with your Hokage."

Naruto swore he saw steam come out of Sakura's ears. "She's still developing her skills. It wouldn't be very kind to her to make her stop. She will be very accomplished some day, possibly the head of Konoha's hospital. Wouldn't a woman like that bring your family greater honor than a mere kunoichi in training?" Sakura's shoulders relaxed a little. _Hot damn, he was on _fire_ today_.

The client looked thoughtful for a few minutes. "Perhaps I could convince him it was a love match? No, you are right. She will have to wait for me." In the golden light of late afternoon Naruto caught the jump of Sakura's shoulders as she stifled a giggle at the idea.

Naruto suddenly discovered how to ask the question that he hadn't known how to ask tactfully. "Why should our Hokage listen to your father anyway?" Okay, so it had still sounded a little rude, but oh well. It was better than flat-out asking who the kid's father was.

The client looked affronted. "He is one of the Daimyo's most trusted advisors. Of course she should consider his counsel carefully." Naruto repressed a snort as he pondered why a kid with so important a father got stuck being escorted by a team of genin. Maybe they were hoping he'd get kidnapped, just to be rid of him.

From his spot on the right rear flank, Kakashi-sensei called to Sakura to take the next path into the woods on her right, which should lead toward another clearing where they could camp for the night.

They fell in around the client again, and Naruto bit his lip to keep from laughing as the client reached out a hand to stroke Sakura's bottom. Sakura spun around with a face like the wrath of a goddess and a fist glowing with enough chakra to put him through three trees, but Kakashi-sensei acted first, swatting the client upside the head.

"Please don't be rude, Hayakawa-_san_. Do I have to report your lack of manners to your father?" The voice was genial enough, matched by the easy grin of the only visible eye, but the geniality hid a steely backbone that spoke of previous threats carried out and _do you know what happens to bad little boys?_ Naruto was impressed; Kakashi-sensei would obviously make a great father some day. (A/N: *sob sob*)

They emerged into the clearing, and Kakashi-sensei took charge of setting up the three tents. Sakura, being the only girl, got her own. The other two were meant for two people to share, and Kakashi-sensei shared with the client as a general rule, in deference to his greater ability to analyze and react to situations when wakened from deep sleep by enemies. That left Naruto with Sasuke.

The idea made his stomach hop nervously. They hadn't been assigned any overnight missions since before Sasuke had discovered his secret, and Naruto found that he sort of missed them. Being alone in a tent with Sasuke, he could pretend that they were a married couple or some romantic crap like that, sleeping side by side at night to match the way they worked side by side during the day.

Besides, as light a sleeper as Sasuke was, he had never seemed to object or even to wake up when Naruto scooted his sleeping bag over so that they were back to back, sharing warmth. And since it was summer, they might even be able to dispense with the sleeping bags entirely.

His face heated up at the thought, and he was grateful for Kakashi-sensei's order to him to locate the nearby stream to retrieve a pail of water to cook with. Averting his gaze from everyone while trying to fight off his blush, he grabbed the pail and trotted into the woods, ears open for the sound of running water.


	6. Chapter 6

Sasuke was a mess. What was Naruto _doing_ to him? Normal people had emotions, and they didn't end up going insane. Why was it different for him? He thought back to Naruto during their lunch stop, offering to help him with what was bothering him. Oh, the irony. It was almost enough to make him laugh/cry again, and that had been mortifying enough the first time.

Not to mention the way the mental trunk had reacted. When Naruto had touched him, all the emotions and thoughts and dreams and scraps of longing had surged outward, trying to reach him like iron filings drawn to a lodestone. The Sasuke-chibi had had to drape himself over the trunk and hold tight to prevent it flying open and ruining everything on the spot.

"What's taking that idiot so long?" Sakura's annoyed growl to the clearing at large jerked his attention back to the present situation. He was sitting on one of the logs he had dragged next to the fire he had built. That had been his assigned task, and Sakura's had been to make the food when Naruto got back with the water (not because shinobi were sexist, she was just better at it than the rest of them) while Kakashi-sensei set up the tents.

But Naruto had yet to return with the water, and almost a half-hour had passed. According to Kakashi-sensei, the stream wasn't more than ten minutes away. Sasuke felt an icy marble plink into the pit of his stomach. Was this what worry felt like? Great, another emotion to shove into the overfilled chest.

He continued to stare into the fire as if fascinated by it, still slightly savoring the gigantic size the client's eyes had reached when he had conjured it with a fire jutsu. Before his reformation into a feeling human being, he wouldn't have cared a bit about who was impressed by his actions. Now, even when his emotions were suppressed, he still felt the tiniest bit smug.

_Good grief_. He didn't have time for this. Naruto was missing. The wide variety of things that might have happened to that blonde-haired _dobe_ paraded past his mind's eye in garish splendor, tossing confetti and blaring trumpets. He felt his heart rate speed up and a spurt of adrenaline jolted through his veins at the thought that an enemy might have attacked him, extracted their location, and was even now coming to get the rest of the team.

He was already scanning the clearing for possible escape routes and prime defense positions when Kakashi-sensei said, "Sasuke, would you mind going to check on Naruto?" _He probably got lost_ went unsaid in front of the client; Sasuke was unable to detect even a hint of concern in his sensei's voice. Maybe the whole enemy idea was a little far-fetched, at that. It wasn't as if anyone could possibly want their snot-nosed brat of a client anyway.

He nodded to his teacher and loped off in the direction Naruto had taken, stifling a grin at the memory of Sakura's face when Hayakawa-_san_ had groped her. The grin stopped trying to stretch his mouth when he remembered his task, and he stood still and focused his senses, searching for Naruto's familiar blue chakra or, failing that, the fiery red chakra of the demon fox.

When he picked up a faint trace of Naruto, his ears also identified the sound of running water in the same direction. Clutching both clues like lifelines, he followed them deeper into the forest. The late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the tree branches to cast claw-like shadows over the faint path he followed through the woods, and he tried to stave off the anxiety they added to the icy ball that was rapidly snowballing in his stomach.

The signature he was able to pick up from Naruto was steady, as if he were unconscious. Sasuke almost panicked again, but he realized there was no one else nearby. Had the idiot knocked himself unconscious on a low tree branch or something? The sound of running water got even closer, and then he emerged into a green glade bisected by a clear stream chattering over a rocky bed, and his breath caught in his throat.

For a few seconds he remained in the shelter of the trees at the edge of the glade, nearly gaping at the sight of Naruto sprawled on his back fast asleep by the banks of the creek with the bucket laying forgotten by his feet. The setting sun highlighted his golden hair with scarlet and gave his usual tan a ruddy glow. He found himself drawing absurd comparisons to angels, especially fallen ones.

The captivating blue eyes were closed, but the rosy lips that had haunted his dreams for months were parted invitingly, and Sasuke was drawn into the glade almost involuntarily. He found himself kneeling beside Naruto's head, mesmerized by the steady rise and fall of his t-shirt-clad chest.

He spent a few more seconds with his eyes fixed on Naruto's lips, gauging the depth of his teammate's slumber. He wouldn't be in REM mode because he couldn't have been asleep for more than five minutes or so. Chances were good that the slightest touch would waken him; he was still a ninja, knuckle-headed or not.

Despite the rational part of his brain detailing this information and the mental chibi begging him with bloodshot puppy-dog eyes not to make its job harder, he found himself leaning in closer, closer, closer until the whisker markings that decorated Naruto's cheeks filled his vision and he could feel his controlled breathing rebound off of Naruto's nose.

Fragments of the previous months' dreams slipped through the trunk's cracks to flit around the edges of his consciousness, and he knew there was no way he'd possibly be able to stop himself. The desire, the _need_ to capture Naruto's lips with his own burned him deep inside, where he'd felt only ice for years before. Pulling in a last gentle breath and holding it so that he wouldn't disturb his teammate's light sleep, he leaned down the final few inches.

Not daring to do more than press his lips gently to Naruto's, he was immensely shocked when a slight moan slipped from his teammate's mouth into his own, and the lips moved under his. Still not breathing, he responded in kind with extreme control and incredible delicateness, sensing that Naruto hovered very close to consciousness but had yet to awaken. If he played this right, maybe his dreams would be kinder to him in the future.

He felt Naruto rising to the surface so he pulled away as delicately as possible, coming to his feet and stepping back slightly as the blue eyes blinked halfway open. Naruto stared up at him hazily, reminding him of the concussed look in those eyes that night he had chased away the gang of hateful villagers. Had he been attacked again since then? Sasuke didn't know; he hadn't allowed himself to follow Naruto home, no matter how much the feelings locked in the trunk wanted him to.

"Sa-?" The moaned syllable slipped from Naruto's lips, a question. Then the sapphire orbs blinked again and the haze of sleep disappeared. "Sasuke? What's going on?"

"You went to get water for dinner and didn't come back, moron. What do you think is going on?" A flush of anger on Naruto's cheeks added itself to the last crimson light of the sunset, but Sasuke turned on his heel and strode back toward the campsite without waiting for a response.

He hoped Naruto had missed the blush that decorated his own cheeks. He couldn't stand there and look at the blonde idiot, knowing that he had interrupted a dream about Sakura and taken shameless advantage of it. Anyway, what kind of shinobi spontaneously fell asleep in the middle of a forest when his tent was less than a hundred yards away?

Sasuke felt the blood drain from his face as he realized that he was going to be sharing that tent with Naruto that night. And now he had more personal fodder to add to his dreams. _Oh __Kami-sama, Naruto had tasted like sunshine_. And how annoyingly appropriate was that?


	7. Chapter 7

Naruto lay by the riverbank for a few seconds after Sasuke's abrupt departure, scratching his head in confusion. Had it been a dream? It had to have been a dream; it was _Sasuke_, after all. It had just been an exceptionally vivid dream and a gigantic coincidence of timing that the real Sasuke had been there to wake him from it.

But he'd never managed to kiss dream-Sasuke before. Did that mean his imagination was improving? Or that his obsession was worsening? He ran a callused finger over his lips, but they didn't tell him anything out of the ordinary.

Shifting his feet to stand up, he jumped when they knocked something over with a metallic _clonk_. He immediately felt silly, and then grabbed up the bucket and filled it in the creek before taking the forest path that his stoic teammate had chosen, mind still whirling.

_It was a nice dream_, he thought as he followed the trail through the twilit forest._ There was a sunset and everything_. It had imparted a hint of color to his best friend's normally alabaster skin. They had been sparring again, and this time he had trapped Sasuke on a tree branch. Sasuke had been on his back gripping the thick branch that supported them both with both hands behind him, leaving Naruto free to crawl on top of him without resistance. Remembering the feeling of Sasuke's chest pressed to his made him indescribably happy in itself, but then for the first time in all the dreams he could remember, he had lowered his mouth to Sasuke's and stolen a kiss.

It had even been a good kiss, though Naruto could hardly call himself an expert on the subject. It had given him those butterflies in his stomach that people always talk about in movies, and Sasuke's lips had been softer than he had anticipated, molding to his with a compliant manner that the real-life Sasuke would never even consider. It had been disconcerting to wake up and discover himself flat on his back looking _up_ at the person he had just been lying on top of.

Naruto spied the flickering of firelight through the trees and realized he had reached the clearing where his team was setting up camp for the night. Glancing quickly downward, he assured himself that he hadn't sloshed all of the water out of the bucket during his distracted return trip. He took the final few steps and broke through the screen of branches.

Sakura looked up from her place next to the fire. "Finally! What took you so long?" Her voice was the exasperated blend of teasing and annoyance he was accustomed to, but the hint of worry in her mint-green eyes was a little surprising.

He scratched his head and laughed self-deprecatingly. "Sorry, Sakura-_chan_." His gaze flicked to the client seated attentively at her side, and he shut his mouth to prevent digging his loss-of-face hole any deeper. Handing the bucket to his rose-haired teammate, his eyes were already scanning the rest of the clearing for Sasuke.

There was no hint of raven-black or flash of moon-pale, but he thought he detected a moving shadow through the fabric of the tent on the left of the three that had been set up. Noticing his preoccupation, Sakura detached herself from their leechlike client and moved toward him.

"Did something happen in the woods? Sasuke came back looking . . . distracted." She searched his eyes with her own, unusually serious.

Naruto shook his head, confused. He kept his voice pitched low so that the client couldn't overhear their conversation and draw conclusions as to their competency as shinobi. "I fell asleep next to the stream. I was having a really nice dream when I woke up and saw him standing over me. He called me a moron for making you all wait for the water for dinner and then stalked off. I have no idea why he might be . . . distracted."

Sakura's mouth quirked in soft smile of almost-awe. "He was worried! Naruto, he was worried about you! When you didn't come back, he must have thought something had happened to you, and then to find you had fallen asleep in the open where anyone could have happened upon you? It's almost as if he were, I don't know, a real teammate or something."

Naruto couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Sakura smile that big, and he couldn't help the answering grin that stretched his mouth. They shared an eye-sparkling moment while imaginary confetti fluttered in the background, and if the client hadn't been staring at them in open curiosity they would have clasped hands and danced in circles. All this time, Sasuke had stayed true to what he had declared on that very first day they had met Kakashi-_sensei_, that he lived only for vengeance, but here, _here_ was a definite sign that a living boy lurked inside him.

The moment ended when Kakashi-_sensei_'s voice broke into their little circle of happiness. "Sakura, could you start on dinner? If we get to bed within a few hours we can break night watch into even two-hour shifts."

Sakura nodded and moved back to the fire to begin preparing the ingredients she had laid out while awaiting Naruto's return with the water. Naruto turned his attention back to the left-most tent, but was unsurprised when his teammate failed to emerge. If Sasuke had been worried about Naruto to the point that his distraction was noticeable, then he'd probably need a few minutes to compose himself. Above all else, Sasuke hated showing weakness.

After about a half-hour had passed, Sakura declared dinner to be ready. The tent flap was pushed aside and Sasuke slid out into the clearing, illuminated only by the dancing light of flames. He didn't look at Naruto, and moved to sit on the far side of the fire from him.

Naruto was suddenly reminded of his suspicions from earlier that day. Maybe Sasuke hadn't been worried about his well-being at all; maybe he had just been concerned that the monster inside him had gotten loose and was about to start a rampage, laying waste to the forest that surrounded them. He had let his wonderful dream blind him to the evidence he had been gathering over the past month, since he had revealed his secret to Sasuke.

He realized Sakura was standing in front of him, one wooden-spoon-holding hand braced on a cocked hip, the other gripping the wire handle of a large collapsible cauldron as she waited for him to hold out his bowl. The concern in her eyes as she studied his face made him feel even worse, but he faked a smile anyway and held up the carved bamboo dish he carried in his pack. "Smells delicious, Sakura-_chan_!" he declared as she ladled a few spoonfuls of stew into it.

Both Sasuke's and Hayakawa-_san_'s heads snapped up at the pronouncement. Sasuke's gaze fell back to his feet as quickly as he had raised it, but the client's eyes followed Sakura's every move.

Throwing a last troubled glance over her shoulder at Naruto, Sakura worked her way around the fire, serving the client, then Sasuke, then Kakashi-_sensei_, before serving herself and taking a seat between Naruto and the client but closer to the client.

_Hmmmm_, thought Naruto, raising an eyebrow as she started a conversation with the handsome teenager. Maybe she was changing her mind about the kid. Or maybe she was just being politic. His lips quirked into a smirk as she giggled at something the kid had said. _I'll have to watch that, it might prove entertaining._

* * * * *

Sakura had taken first watch, with the client sitting up to keep her company while the rest of them headed off to the tents. Naruto had fallen asleep directly, but Sasuke had remained awake, muscles wound tight with tension as he listened to the blonde's soft breathing melding with the sound of Sakura and the client conversing quietly.

If anyone had asked him a month ago what his version of Hell would be, he'd probably have come up with something like watching Itachi murder their parents over and over again, or maybe something to do with his father's everlasting disapproval. He never expected that Hell would be a tent on a summer's night with his teammate and best friend sleeping next to him, obviously dreaming of Sakura again.

He couldn't suppress a wince as Naruto moaned and shifted in his sleep again, then froze stiff when Naruto rolled over onto his side, facing him. Sasuke was lying on his back staring at the canvas ceiling a few feet above his face, trying to control the furious blush that kept trying to spread across his face as Naruto's agitated breathing ghosted across his neck.

His hands gripped each other at his waist, but he wasn't sure whether it was to hide their trembling, to keep them from touching Naruto, or to keep them from touching himself. He let his eyes slide sideways, drinking in the sight of Naruto's curiously mobile sleeping face in the dimness of the tent. His traitorous hands twitched, wanting to smooth a lock of golden hair back from that angelic face, but they were shocked to stillness when Naruto's own hands began to move.

Sasuke gauged Naruto's consciousness level, finding him deep in REM sleep as the fingers of his right hand trailed up his left arms and across his chest, causing him to flop back into a supine position. Another moan trailed out of the blonde's sleeping mouth as the left hand began to move too, sliding over the t-shirt that Sasuke _knew_ hid washboard abs and lower, as the right hand stayed on his chest and rubbed at nipples that Sasuke _knew_ were a dusky rose color.

Sasuke bit back a whimper as the left hand slid beneath the waistband of the loose sleep pants that Naruto always brought on overnight missions, comfortable enough to sleep in yet sturdy enough to allow freedom of movement in the event of a midnight ambush. _That's it, Sasuke, think about clothing. Don't think about how you're _thisclose _to snapping, don't think about your best friend having a wet dream right next to you_. His hands twitched again as he watched Naruto's right hand give a particularly vicious pinch, back arching upward into the sensation of pained pleasure.

Sasuke forced his gaze back to the roof of the tent, mind working furiously as the Sasuke-chibi in his head wrapped a thick chain three times around the mental trunk. He flinched, horrified, when he realized his own clasped hands were rubbing up and down on his stomach, and when Sakura came to the tent flap to tell him it was his watch, he bolted.

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Gomen nasai for the looooooong wait! I lost track of the last time I posted. Here's the deal: I'm hoping to finish this up before Script Frenzy starts in April. We'll see how that goes. Thanks for reading along so far! Almost done (I think...)


	8. Chapter 8

Sasuke sat alone in the gloom of the star-lit clearing, his back to a tree as he scanned his surroundings with his senses. With the fire banked, its pops and cracks muted, the only sounds in the mild Indian summer night were the faint breathing from the three tents and the rhythmic chirp of cicadas.

There was a rustling of furtive movement from the center tent, followed by Kakashi-_sensei_'s gentle murmur. "Your father signed a contract on your behalf, Hayakawa-san. Noninvolvement until the mission is completed. Please return to your bed."

The sullen reply was "I am offended! I was merely going to relieve myself. How dare you accuse me of lewd conduct!"

The zipper opened with a noise like fabric tearing, and the client stepped out into the dark clearing, his hair tousled and his eyes straining in the weak light. He stumbled across the clearing past the banked fire, ending up by where the bathroom pit had been dug, and, true to his word, let go with a sigh of pleasure.

When he had finished, he made his way back to the tents. He started angling toward the smallest one, on the right, but Sasuke was waiting for him, having crossed the clearing on silent feet, his shinobi night vision much better than that of a pampered _daimyo_'s subject.

"It would be a terrible idea to wake her in the middle of the night after her watch for anything less than a full-scale enemy invasion," he said smoothly, feeling again that hint of smugness at how the client leaped three feet into the air in surprise. "Even Naruto and I wouldn't do that, and we're trained professionals."

Recovering from his shock, the client's eyes went dreamy. "Ah, so she is truly a warrior! I would be proud to have such a woman by my side! And yet, she is so delicate and graceful, like a flower riding on a swift river." (For those who understand Japanese, I sincerely apologize for that but it was out before I really thought about it and then I couldn't make myself erase it...)

Sasuke had already turned and retraced his steps to his guard post, and to his extreme annoyance, the client trailed after him like an imprinted duckling.

"I never feel so alive as I do when she is before me. Her very presence sets my blood afire." The client had plopped down next to him, still chattering. Sasuke decided that though Naruto had been yammering on about the exact same subject for as long as they'd been a team, Hayakawa-_san_ was somehow _much_ more irritating.

"I tried to sleep, but all I saw was her face, her body, her skin, and I woke with such a terrible longing . . ." The client kept talking, and the part of Sasuke's mind he had begun calling "the sane part" was displeased, but the part he tried to keep locked up was tallying similarities and coming to undesirable conclusions.

The Sasuke-chibi in his head, for whom it was long past bedtime, made a rude face, kicked open the emotional trunk it had been so strenuously guarding all day, then vanished in a cloud of chibi-smoke. Sasuke felt his mouth freeze in the middle of requesting that Hayakawa-_san_ return to bed as everything he'd been trying to ignore burst free.

He rejoined the rather one-sided conversation in time to hear, ". . . and even though she might never return my feelings, at least I have been man enough to tell her. I considered holding back for the sake of decorum, but that would have been a coward's reasoning. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself."

Sasuke stared, thunderstruck, as the oblivious client prattled on. _Is this pompous windbag right? Am I being a coward?_ The freed emotions rattling around his head made him inclined to agree, and the chibi popped back into his head, nodded vigorously, then popped back out again. He obviously felt _something_ for the idiot, since just the thought of him could disturb him to such a degree, but he's never explored it because he was afraid of ruining the status quo.

And there it was. _Afraid_. He, Uchiha Sasuke, who confidently faced opponents vastly more experienced than he, who trained endlessly to kill the most dangerous man his village had ever produced, was afraid of that blonde-haired, empty-headed idiot. Well, _that_ would have to change.

Hayakawa-_san_'s incessant noise had ceased, and Sasuke glanced up to see the man eying him warily. He realized his mouth was stretched in a silent snarl, and tried to force it into some semblance of a friendly smile as he checked his watch.

"Please return to bed, Hayakawa-_san_. The watch will change soon and I'd like to do one more circuit of the camp to make sure the area is still secure." Still staring as if at a wild beast that had wandered into his living room, the client rose to his feet and crossed the clearing back to the center tent. It wasn't until the zipper had closed behind him that Sasuke realized his feet had made no noise.

* * * * *

Naruto was awakened from a dreamless sleep by fingers gripping his t-shirt and yanking him upward into a sitting position. Before he could react, a pair of lips were mashed harshly against his, moving demandingly. For a split second he could not move, then he was shoved away, eyes popping open as his shoulders hit his bedroll.

He found himself staring at Sasuke's back as the other boy knelt and slid into his own bedroll. "Wha-" he started to say, but a voice like a growl cut him off.

"It's your watch, moron. Wake Kakashi-_sensei_ in two hours."

Naruto stared at the unmoving back of his best friend. In a situation like this, he would have liked to believe that his mind would be racing, but the reality was, he was in complete and utter shock. He found himself unable to think a single coherent thought.

After a few seconds that seemed like icy eternities, his instincts kicked on and told him that if Sasuke was inside the tent, then there was no one outside keeping watch. This got him automatically out of his bedroll, grabbing his weapons pouch from its accustomed place next to his pillow, and semi-stumbling out into the clearing.

When he had completed a circuit a few yards out in every direction around the camp, his mind still full of icy silence, he returned to the lookout post they had designated before bed as the location with the best vantage over the camp. Once seated, his frozen mind kicked into gear and tried to make up for the lost time.

_He kissed me. Was it a dream? It wasn't like the usual dreams._ The impact back onto his bedroll after being flung away had felt real. But then, when he fell out of trees during dream-sparring, that usually felt real, too.

It had seemed a fairly realistic scenario, if any scenario involving locking lips with his asexual teammate could be called realistic. There wouldn't be any words wasted on niceties between the two of them, not when they would only get in the way of the goal - namely, labial molestation.

So did that mean the dreams were getting more realistic? Or had _the_ Uchiha Sasuke really just snogged him, then passed the watch and gone to sleep as if nothing had happened? If he considered the way Sasuke had treated the news of the Kyuubi inside him - by acting the next morning as if nothing unusual had passed between them - perhaps that might not be too far-fetched after all. _But how to be sure . . . ?_

After almost a half-hour spent agonizing and worrying at the dilemma from all directions, assistance came from the most unlikely of sources.

_Will you quit it already? You're giving me a headache, and as a being of pure energy I don't even have a head._

Damn, he must have been getting pretty worked up; he'd woken the Kyuubi.

_Kami, you're so incredibly thick sometimes! Of course he kissed you! And even if he hadn't this time, he wants you. Badly. Wake up and smell the pheromones_.

The disgusted muttering trailed off as the nine-tailed fox retreated into the shadows of its dank sealed prison, . . . _all that emotion and there isn't even a fight going on. Waste of my time . . ._

Naruto wanted to shout after the Kyuubi that it wasn't as if it was busy or anything like that, but as a rule he didn't have friendly conversations with the cause of his pariah status. Anyway, if the beast was willing to withdraw without even trying to get him to remove the seal, he was more than happy to let it go.

_So_, he thought, forcing his thoughts back to the task at hand, _now what?_ If Sasuke had indeed kissed him, then how should they proceed? _Why_ was the next step in answering that particular question. Had it been a joke? Was he not feeling well? Was it in fact possible that his lust was reciprocated?

_This shoots the "thinks I'm a monster" theory down in flames, at least._ Unless it was a "mastering your fears" kind of exercise for Sasuke, who was always trying to find new ways to get stronger. But the Kyuubi had said Sasuke wanted him . . .

A growl echoed up from the depths of his mind, reminding him that his demonic houseguest was already irritated and cranky, and any further deliberations on his part might instigate an attempt at a hostile takeover.

Keeping this in mind, he focused on calming his racing thoughts, on planning a course of action. It would, again, depend on Sasuke's actions in the morning. Or should he just jump him the minute he was off watch?

It hadn't been a gentle kiss. It had been harsh and demanding and over far too quickly. He hadn't even gotten a chance to react-much less kiss back-before being thrust away. If the Kyuubi was right, and Sasuke _did_ want him, he must have felt rejected after Naruto's lack of response. Maybe tackling him immediately was the best idea.

Then he remembered other times he'd woken Sasuke, even for reasonably important things like his turn at watch. He didn't punch people through trees like Sakura sometimes did, but his Uchiha Death Glare (registered trademark) could fry you on the spot, despite being accompanied by messy hair and sleepy eyes.

_So, tomorrow, then_, he thought as his wristwatch beeped quietly, signalling the end of his watch. He stood, stretching his arms over his head as he extended his senses as far as they could go in every direction. A small animal was rustling in the underbrush to the southeast, but other than that, the chirping of the cicadas was the only sound. He crossed the clearing and raised a hand to unzip the door of the center tent, but it unzipped before he could touch it, and Kakashi-_sensei_'s silvery mop glittered in the pale predawn light as he poked his head out.

"My turn?" he said, not sounding as if he had been asleep at all.

Naruto nodded. "Nothing interesting to report," he murmured, trying not to wake the client, wondering if even Kakashi-_sensei_ had ever come up with a bigger lie.


	9. Chapter 9

They struck camp and set off a few hours after sunrise the next morning. Surprisingly, the client didn't complain at the early start, simply shouldering his pack and setting off with Kakashi-_sensei_ at his side. Naruto was running left guard while Sakura took the right, which left Sasuke all alone in front and barely capable of walking straight, much less keeping an eye out for lurking enemies.

He had woken up in a good mood for once in his life, but it had vanished when he had remembered the cause. _What the hell was I thinking?_ His head had been full of the client's words about cowardice, about being in love. When he'd re-entered their tent to wake Naruto for his watch, the freed emotions had shined so brightly in his mind that they had blinded him temporarily. When he could see again, he was kissing Naruto.

That morning, in the clear, logical light of day, spilling his feelings had seemed like the worst idea of all time. It wasn't cowardice, this not wanting to throw a monkey wrench into the team dynamic in the middle of a mission. It was just plain good sense.

It was midmorning before he managed to convince himself he wasn't being a spineless weakling, and he consoled himself with the promise that he would talk to Naruto the minute the mission ended. _The poor moron must be so confused._

After all, what could Naruto be thinking, being awakened like some fairy-tale princess by a teammate whom he had every reason to believe barely tolerated him? It hadn't been very fair of him to do it, which he'd be the first one to admit, but he'd had no control over his body. The emotions that had been steadily growing over the past few months had taken over completely. He couldn't even remember what the kiss had actually felt like.

Okay, so that was a huge lie. If he thought back on it, every moment was crystal clear, as if encased in glass. He saw himself marching into the tent, curling fingers into Naruto's sleep shirt, felt again the flexing of his arm muscles as he yanked his teammate upright. He hadn't bothered checking the depth of Naruto's slumber; even a knuckle-headed ninja like Naruto couldn't fail to be awakened by something as violent as surprise mouth-rape.

It was all there, inside his head, but he had no memory of consciously deciding to act; it was as if he were watching an incredibly pertinent show on television. Either way, when he had come back to himself, had felt Naruto's dream-state pop like a soap bubble, he had definitely taken the sane (_cowardly_) way out, passing the watch and pretending to go to sleep.

Thinking back on it, he wondered at Naruto's normal morning behavior. He himself would have been in a towering rage had anyone taken advantage of him in his sleep. _Anyone besides Naruto, you mean_, whispered the insidious voice he usually tried desperately to ignore. He'd filled his trunk with as much of the emotions and dreams as he could, but there were way too many to fit them all in; besides, he had had no time to do a proper morning ritual. He'd had to shove everything in haphazardly while he packed up their tent, praying to a god he wasn't sure he believed in that no one noticed his embarrassing morning wood.

It seemed as if his prayers had been answered, because no one said a word as they broke camp, besides "Good morning"s all 'round and a "Delicious breakfast, Sakura-_chan_!" from Naruto. Then they had set off, automatically rotating positions again, leaving him, their most distracted person, in the position that demanded the most focus.

To make matters worse, the memories of his actions the night before, as well as the client's words on love, bounced around inside his skull until he could barely stand it. It was therefore a huge relief when he sensed four presences in the woods ahead, two on each side of the path. Glancing over his shoulder, he waved to get his _sensei_'s attention.

Kakashi-_sensei_ glanced up from what looked to be a deeply engrossing conversation with the client. Sasuke waved two fingers, gesturing to either side of the path, then flashed his estimate of how far ahead of them the ambush was set. Kakashi-_sensei_ concentrated, and then nodded. He seemed about to turn to give the signal to his other teammates when Sasuke gestured again, indicating himself. Their team leader shrugged, made a small shooing motion, and returned to his conversation with Hayakawa-_san_ though Sasuke could tell he was keeping closer tabs on their surroundings in the absence of a point runner.

Satisfied, Sasuke darted off the path to the left. He could feel the eyes of his teammates following him curiously, but they stayed in their positions at Kakashi-_sensei_'s lack of response.

By leaping from tree to tree, wind whistling past his ears, he pulled away from the rest of the group. About five minutes later, he came upon the first of the ambushers. They were crouched behind some bushes a short distance from the road, peering between the screening bushes. Sasuke studied them from his perch halfway up a tall tree,

They wore fairly nice clothing, indicating either a high success rate or an alternative day job that was considerably more lucrative. Sasuke decided to go with the second option as one of the figures shifted, snapping a branch underfoot. These guys were clearly only doing this as some kind of twisted hobby.

Even though he knew, _knew_, that Naruto was more than capable of taking care of all four of the ambushers single-handedly, the remnants of his emotions were inflamed by the idea that these men meant him harm, would kill him if they could.

But this time, instead of his body moving by itself, he thought over the situation, created a plan of attack that took into account the other attackers across the path as well as the increasing proximity of the client, whom he was being paid to protect. Only after this did he move, in full agreement with his body.

Sasuke darted down the tree trunk and across the grass that separated them, sending chakra into his feet to muffle their pounding. His _kunai_ took the nearest man across the throat from behind and the second man through the kidneys. As they fell, Sasuke sliced the front man across the throat as well, for good measure, and then he was gone before the bodies hit the ground. There had been no noise.

Faster than any eye could follow, Sasuke flashed across the path, sensing his team approaching. He burst through the screen of bushes and nailed the front man through the eye with a _senbon_. He aimed for the last man's wrist as the arm was raised in defense, but as the detached hand fell, spilling blood, he felt a tearing pain in his left arm.

Glancing down as he automatically slashed open the man's stomach, he observed that his arm had been cut open. More annoyed at his dangerous overconfidence than anything else, Sasuke realized the empty hand had been a mere diversion as the man aimed for a vital point. Unfortunately for him, however, Sasuke had caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and moved to block it with his non-dominant hand. His reaction most likely stemmed from sparring with Naruto, when the idiot had still flailed fists from every direction on the off-chance one of his punches might land. It had come as a shock to discover a knife instead.

He realized he'd been standing stupidly over the still bodies while blood escaped from a gash on his forearm and dripped off his fingers to join the rapidly spreading puddle at his feet. He shook himself, then shifted and tightened the bandages already wrapped around his arm to stem the blood flow. With his preoccupation that morning, he'd neglected to tie them properly; if he had done so in the first place, he would have come through the whole affair without a scratch on him.

_Naruto's fault again_, he thought wryly, his irritation at himself tempered by . . . _affection? Is that what this would be called?_ Retrieving his weapons and wiping them and his bloody hand clean on one of the dead men's tunics, he stepped back onto the path at exactly the right time to resume his position at the head of the group. His arm throbbed in time with his footsteps.

* * * * *

Naruto was beginning to wonder when they would stop for a mid-morning break when they crested a hill and a sprawling city opened up below them. His steps faltered for a half-second, but after Sasuke's mysterious disappearance and reappearance an hour earlier he'd been particularly focused on his surroundings, so he wasn't completely taken by surprise.

The client, however, exclaimed with joy. "Home!" he cried, picking up his pace a little as they started down the hill into the village. Sasuke, as the front man, adjusted his pace accordingly with barely a glance over his shoulder at them, so that despite their increased speed his back was as far away as ever.

_Metaphor for my life_, thought Naruto with a wry twist of his lips. He'd been trying to catch up to Sasuke his entire life, particularly today. He still wasn't sure where Sasuke had gone when he'd vanished into the forest, and since his return Naruto had been trying to catch his eye, to send some kind of signal, but Sasuke hadn't turned around. Naruto had shared worried glances with Sakura, but eventually they both had shrugged and returned to their ceaseless scanning of the surrounding forest.

Now, however, they were entering a town. They would have to close ranks to keep the client protected. _Any second now_, he thought as the group walked through gates in the tall wooden palisade that surrounded the city, _Kakashi-sensei will-_

"Team, fall in," their _sensei_ called. Naruto and Sakura moved up, but instead of falling back Sasuke simply stopped where he was and waited for their walking pace to catch up to him. Kakashi-_sensei_ seemed mildly concerned, but he gave no indication that anything was against procedure in front of the client.

As the gathered group moved forward through crowded streets, the client gave directions, steering them past market stalls, brothels, flower shops, all the things one finds in small villages. Naruto caught a fragment of the conversation the client was having with Kakashi-_sensei_.

"So you'll stay, then? My father-" and the rest was lost as a shop owner tossed some garbage into a bin outside her door.

_Stay?_ Weren't they headed home immediately after ditching this client's pompous ass? Ears straining to catch Kakashi-_sensei_'s response, Naruto almost ran into the client before he realized they had stopped walking.

"This is it," said the client proudly. "My father's home when he is not at court with the _daimyo_." Naruto gazed at the house, larger than his entire apartment building. He was opening his mouth to ask Kakashi-_sensei_ what the whole "staying" thing had been about when his teacher spoke first, visible eye happily arched.

"Hayakawa-_san_ has invited us to stay for lunch so _we_" here he looked pointedly at Sakura, "can meet his father. I have told him that we'd be delighted." Naruto glanced at Sakura, expecting a scowl of displeasure, and was surprised to see a blush pinkening her cheeks instead.

He shifted his gaze to their third teammate, who was surveying them with arms folded, his face a blank. Naruto shrugged in acknowledgement of Kakashi-_sensei_'s questioning gaze but he did not take his eyes off of Sasuke as he also shrugged, then led the team up the stonework path to the front door. Close up, there was an unfamiliar strain visible in the set of Sasuke's shoulders.

Sasuke stepped aside as they reached the front door, allowing the client to slide it open and yell, "_Tadaima_!" They followed him in, removing their shoes. In seconds, a horde of maids descended on them, cooing and exclaiming how good it was to see the young master again. The client was in his element, issuing orders for them to be taken to guest rooms.

"Formal dress is not required, but you might want to freshen up a bit. I have to speak to my father and set the cooks going. Lunch will be served in an hour. Please feel free to explore. My family has beautiful gardens, excellent for private conversations." He slid a glance at Sakura, who blushed again. Naruto grinned evilly to himself; he'd be able to tease her about this for _ages_.

He followed a cute little maid up a staircase and down a plushly carpeted hallway. She bowed him through another sliding door and then vanished back up the hallway. Sliding the door closed behind him, he gazed around his new surroundings. The decorations were tasteful and understated, indicating a comfortable level of wealth but not opulence. He faced another sliding door that was open onto the gardens, letting in a soft grass-scented breeze. There was a door connecting him to the room next to his, or, as he discovered on further exploration, a connecting bathroom with a warm shower-fountain and a hot soaking tub. He thought he spotted movement by the door that led out of the bathroom to the next room, but when he turned his head there was nothing there.

Dropping his pack to the tiled floor, he stripped out of his dirty clothes and jumped under the stream of warm water. He washed himself and lathered and rinsed his hair with soap and shampoo from an overhead shelf.

When he was satisfied that he no longer smelled as if he hadn't showered in two days, he hurriedly dried off and dressed in his spare set of clothes. Then he gathered his things and went through the connecting door back to his room. There, he found a pair of outdoor slippers, which he put on, and then he went out into the garden to find Sasuke. The mission was over, and he was out of excuses. That bastard had some explaining to do.

* * * * *

Sasuke stood in the shadows of his assigned room and watched Naruto plunge into the maze of hedges outside his door. Not that he was hiding or anything, it was just a test to see if Naruto was using his powers of observation. But Naruto didn't turn around, no matter how loudly half of Sasuke's brain shouted his name, and in seconds he had vanished.

Sasuke allowed himself to relax for the first time since yesterday morning, when this godforsaken fiasco of a mission had started. His arm was still throbbing rather painfully, and he had been planning on soaking in a hot bath, but Naruto had once again thrown a monkey wrench into his plans.

He had gone into the bath, only to discover it was already occupied by that blonde-haired bane of his existence. He stealthily withdrew, but only because the headache he was developing probably wouldn't go well with the echoes off marble and tile that would arise from the yell Naruto would let out if startled by him. Not because he was afraid. _Not_.

This didn't prevent him from watching through the crack of the door as Naruto stripped naked and hopped in the shower. Sasuke found himself mesmerized by the reality of acres of bare tan skin, glistening as rivulets of water traced paths his tongue had followed in his dreams. It was only by digging his fingers into the bandage over his fresh knife wound that he was able to keep his head and not go rushing in to help his teammate wash that luxurious golden hair that clung to his neck and sent more rivulets coursing down that broad back.

When the hedges had swallowed his teammate, Sasuke took his turn in the shower, absurdly grateful for the alone time he had so desperately needed that morning to sort through all the revelations of the previous evening. Once clean, he rewrapped his slash wound – which was still bleeding sluggishly – in clean bandages, cast a longing look at the tub, which steamed invitingly, then returned to his room. He, too, made the discovery of outdoor slippers, but he was not nearly as glad to see them as Naruto had been.

_Now you _are_ being a coward_, he told himself sternly. His mental chibi sighed resignedly and started shoveling emotions into the trunk, but he stopped it. Taking stock of his metal state, it did seem to be a hopeless task to attempt to lock it all away. No longer was his mind filled with the icy silence of his hatred and rage at his _nii-san_. Now, they were dark shadows that contrasted sharply with the sunny memories of the sound of Naruto's laugh, his determination to become Hokage, the way he had tasted those few times he had stolen kisses.

The chibi stood in the midst of all this as if it were in the middle of a sun-lit meadow on a summer day. Telegraphing it his decision, the chibi started herding the angry shadows of his brother's legacy into the now-empty trunk. If he were truly going to confront Naruto, they both deserved the freedom from unrelated complications.

When the birds were singing and the crickets were going _zee_ in the sunny meadow in his head, when the chibi draped a towel over the closed trunk and lay on it to sunbathe, only then did he allow himself to step out into the garden.

He was astonished at how different he felt. He was . . . happy, he supposed, for the first time in years. He felt like the typical insecure hormonal teenager he could have been in another life; his only concerns at the moment were the nervous butterflies in his stomach at the uncertainty of Naruto's reaction.

Even the sunlight on his shoulders felt different and new, as if he'd removed a dark veil that he had been wearing between himself and the world. As he entered the maze of hedges and located Naruto's chakra signature – which felt focused and was moving steadily in a search pattern – he realized there was a smile on his face. He left it there.

He emerged into an enclosed space with a fountain in the center. Moving closer over lush green grass, he blinked in surprise as a fish broke the surface of the pool, snatching a fly out of the air before resubmerging with a small splash. The ripples spread outward and the surface calmed, leaving him facing his own reflection backed by a blue sky full of puffy white clouds.

Transfixed, he reached up and touched his own cheek. With the smile in place, he almost looked eight years old again, open and friendly, as if the world was a good place where nothing could hurt him. _Naruto always looks like this_, he realized as he let his hand fall to his side again, _even though he knows better than anyone how untrue that is_.

His reflection's smile dimmed at the memory of Naruto lying battered and defeated on night-dark pavement. _No, not defeated. Never defeated._ And his smile returned.

It was still in place when a voice said, "How long are you going to stare at your own reflection, you narcissistic ba-"

Here he turned to face Naruto, and the smile was probably the reason why Naruto stopped talking and gaped at him.

He waited a few seconds for that famous Uzumaki mouth to rise to the occasion. He wasn't disappointed, though there was confusion behind the usual brash cheerfulness. "Wow, does looking at yourself always make you this happy, or is it just today because Sakura-_chan_ has someone else to obsess over?"

Naruto walked toward him across the grass, looking wary and unsure, and the noon-high sun gave him a completely appropriate halo. The butterflies in Sasuke's stomach went Mandelbrot, causing storms in other regions of his body.

His mouth, by force of habit as an emotional defense mechanism, tried to slide into a smirk, but he caught it and forced his face to 'serious.' Naruto suddenly looked as if someone had turned off the sun and his wary steps faltered even more, until he halted almost ten feet from where Sasuke stood next to the wide marble rim of the fountain.

_This is it_, he thought, _I have no excuses left_. "Naruto-"

Naruto jolted as if he'd been given an electric shock, and then started babbling, face stricken. "I know what you're going to say, and I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear about how you did it unwillingly or you thought I was dream-Sakura or it was all a joke. I know you've got your goals – and I have mine-_ttebayo!_ – so just shut up and let's not mention it again."

"Naruto," said Sasuke again, and the blue eyes frantically searched the open area for _anything_ else to look at. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Naruto's face scrunched in confusion, and he said, "The kiss! Last night, when you passed the watch! I've been dreading this moment all day," Sasuke's stomach turned to lead, "because I couldn't decide whether or not to tell you to shove your excuses because _I liked it_."

Sasuke's heart thudded painfully in his chest, and he hoped his face didn't show the wild rush of emotions he suddenly felt. Naruto cocked his head to the side, eying him carefully, before his eyes widened and he clapped both hands over his mouth. "Oh, shit, is that not what you were going to talk about?" His words were mumbled through his fingers as his hands slid up to hide his whole face.

"Damn, and I'd decided not to tell you that anyway! Damn!"

Sasuke couldn't help it: he laughed. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd laughed, but here in this sunny garden on this beautiful day with his hatred and anger locked away and Naruto saying he had liked being kissed, it seemed like the right reaction. Two cornflower eyes peeked from between tanned fingers as his laughter doubled him over, then were revealed as the hands dropped away altogether and Naruto stepped closer, concerned.

"Sasuke? Did they leave _sake_ in your room or something? 'Cuz there wasn't any in mine, and that's totally not fair . . ."

Still grinning, Sasuke straightened to face his teammate. "Just a little light-headed from blood loss," he said, gesturing with his bandaged arm. Naruto's eyes followed it, widening in concern, hand automatically reaching to grab it and examine it, but Sasuke intercepted, seizing the questing forearm.

"Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was," and he yanked Naruto closer, bandaged arm grabbing hold of Naruto's neck as he finally, _finally_, in full consciousness and in complete control of his actions, kissed Naruto.

Naruto's stunned immobility didn't faze him for a second; he kept up his unrelenting attack and after a few frozen seconds, the lips beneath his began to move in return.

That was all the warning he got before Naruto lunged at him, freeing his trapped wrist and wrapping both arms around Sasuke, pulling them flush against each other.

Sasuke let both of his hands sink into Naruto's golden spikes, gripping tightly for some purchase as their teeth clashed rather painfully and they constantly shifted angles as noses got in the way.

He could easily ignore the burning in his lungs that signaled a need for air, but what he _couldn't_ ignore was the quiet giggling coming from one of the pathways leading into the open space. He had drawn a kunai and was halfway into his throwing motion before it occurred to him that it might just be a maid. He channeled some of his forward momentum into angular so that the kunai sank into the soft grass at the intruder's feet as he separated from a dazed-looking Naruto with an audible _pop_.

The giggling only increased in volume, and he looked around Naruto's head to see Sakura and the client holding each other up as laughter robbed the strength from their knees. Naruto turned around, not seeming surprised. He'd probably detected them when Sasuke had, but had allowed Sasuke to deal with the potential threat. Even in the middle of this strange situation it gave Sasuke a warm feeling inside to know that Naruto trusted him so completely to watch his back.

"What's so funny?" Naruto demanded, but that only made them laugh harder, and Sasuke could see their point; Naruto's righteous indignation was somewhat diminished by his mussed hair and kiss-swollen lips. Sasuke found himself laughing again as well. It was clear to him what must have happened, but of course the moron would need it explained.

Naruto glanced back at him, confused again and starting to look a little hurt, as if there was a big joke at his expense that he wasn't in on. Sasuke stopped laughing at once, and, moved by the desire to never see that look in Naruto's eyes ever again, wrapped his arms around Naruto from behind as they both faced the source of the interruption.

"Moron, it's really quite simple," he said, letting his breath brush the shell of Naruto's ear. He was pleased with the result: a shiver and the red tide of a blush creeping up the tan neck. "Sakura, you explain." He kept half an ear on the following conversation and went to work marking that neck as his property while Naruto trembled under his hands.

Sakura got herself enough under control to choke out, "Gin-_kun_ came to find me, said he knew a perfect spot in the garden for-" and she dissolved into giggles again.

The client – _well, ex-client now_, thought Sasuke as Naruto made an alluring mewling noise and dug blunt fingernails into the arm Sasuke had wrapped around him – took up where Sakura had left off, still sputtering with laughter. "Perfect spot for private conversations in body language. But you were already -" and he was gone again.

"Maybe there was _sake_ in _their_ rooms," Naruto muttered, attempting to be peeved, but then he yelped as Sasuke sank his teeth into his earlobe.

"They're wrong, anyway. No one would ever call this _private_." Sasuke was about to suggest they retire to one of their rooms when a gong rang out in the still summer air, causing the cicadas to fall temporarily silent.

"_Ahem_," said Hayakawa-san, clearing his throat and pulling himself together with obvious effort, though his shoulders still shook occasionally with repressed laughter. "That'll be lunch."


	10. Chapter 10

Naruto had never been less interested in eating. He politely picked at each of the four courses and tried to join the conversation every so often, but each time his gaze crossed Sasuke's the bites on his neck tingled and he'd have to struggle not to blush. Sasuke would allow a small smile to slide onto his face, and whatever he had been saying would be lost. The client's father must think him mentally subnormal.

Because there it was, finally. Sasuke's smile. It was even better in real life than it had been in his dreams. He had stormed out of his assigned guestroom less than an hour ago, determined to find the bastard and make him explain that kiss last night, but his nerve had failed him at the sight of Sasuke standing by the fountain in the sunlight. All he had been able to do was stare, and hope that when Sasuke turned around he'd talk about something else.

Sasuke hadn't turned, and Naruto had stared at the back he'd always been chasing and suddenly he didn't want to look at it any more. His words had brought Sasuke around, and he had seen it for the first time in over five years: the most beautiful thing in the world. His mouth had gone on autopilot. Unfortunately, when he mentioned Sakura the smile had gone away and his world ended. The smile wasn't for him, the kiss hadn't been for him, it was all for Sakura and for the first time in his life Naruto hated someone . . .

He didn't want to hear Sasuke say it had been some twisted emotionless experiment where he judged whether or not his urges for Sakura were the ones a person usually had for a teammate. Sasuke's use of his name, his actual _name_, had set off his mouth again, and everything he'd been worrying about all night and all morning had come spilling out and suddenly Sasuke was _laughing_ and the world had turned upside-down.

Naruto looked, really _looked_ at his best friend. The chakra strain was gone, and Sasuke felt solid, as if the strange vibrations that had been increasing over the past few months had never been. In fact – he stepped forward to get a closer look – even Sasuke's perpetual aura of darkness had vanished. As the boy he'd come to believe was emotionless doubled over from the force of his mirth, Naruto began having doubts about Sasuke's sanity or, failing that, his own.

He was seriously leaning toward the second choice when, seconds later, after being distracted by a wound he hadn't even known Sasuke had obtained, Sasuke was kissing him.

_No. No, no, no, nonononononono . . . yes. Yes. Yes!_

It had, of course, been over far too quickly, and now here he was, aching for the touch of the person sitting five feet away, which may as well have been on the moon. Naruto faced Kakashi-_sensei_ across the table as they flanked the client's father. The client was at the other end of the long table, with Sakura on his left and Sasuke on his right. Sasuke, of course, was not expected to contribute to the conversation, but Naruto kept getting looks from his other teammates who were carrying the burden to which he was unequal – concerned from Kakashi-_sensei_, knowing and wickedly amused from Sakura. And after this torture there was still the journey back to Konoha, during which Sakura would probably bang on endlessly about the client, whose father she was going great lengths to charm.

Naruto caught Sasuke's eye again over dessert. Sasuke lifted an elegant eyebrow that spoke volumes, and Naruto had to fight down the urge to blush, concentrating a good deal more than was warranted on his mochi. If they moved quickly and kept going after sundown instead of making camp while it was still light out as they had the previous evening, they could sleep in their own beds that night. _Or each other's _. . .

There could be no mistaking it. Sasuke wanted him. Sasuke _wanted_ him. _Sasuke_ wanted _him_.

_I told you so_, growled his demonic houseguest. _Now shut up and eat your mochi already_.

For once, Naruto obeyed the Kyuubi, eager to get through the meal and head for home. The client's father was suggesting an overnight stay and a fresh start bright and early tomorrow morning, but Naruto was having none of that. "Sakura," he left off her usual diminutive honorific in honor of the seriousness of the circumstances, "don't you have to get back to see your patients? Three days away has got to be pushing it." There, he'd disguised his rush to get home as a comment on her importance for the Hayakawas. That should work, right? He caught the approving glance Sasuke flashed him and felt a warmth seep into the pit of his stomach. _No way am I spending my first night with Sasuke in a house with paper walls . . ._

This led him to consider what it might be like – his imagination supplied pictures much like their sparring sessions except indoors and naked – and he had to disguise a moan in a gulp of scalding tea. How could he ever have thought what he felt for Sakura was this kind of love?

* * * * *

"Alone at last." _Is that voice really mine? _thought Sasuke. He'd never heard it sound so full of emotion.

He'd released his negative feelings for the high-speed journey home. They were a part of who he was, and if the corrosion on the inside of the trunk was any indication, it wasn't terribly healthy to keep them hidden away. Besides, it was the final request of one of his most important people, and he intended to see that all the way through.

They had slid in through the gate just as Izumo and Kotetsu were setting up at their night-guard post. Kakashi-_sensei_ had _poof_ed to Hokage Tower to prepare and file a mission report, and Sakura had sped gleefully toward the Yamanaka flower shop with a laughing backward glance at the pair of them, almost exploding with gossip.

This had left Sasuke with Naruto, who suddenly wouldn't look at him. Izumo and Kotetsu had looked on curiously as Sasuke said "_Dobe_," then when Naruto had looked up angrily he had grabbed his wrist and vanished them both, using the transport jutsu he had _sharingan_-ed off Kakashi-_sensei_.

When they had reappeared in his living room (he had set anti-transport traps in his bedroom, or he would have taken them there directly), Naruto had stumbled away, thrown off-balance, while Sasuke leaned back against his front door and made his comment.

Naruto caught his balance a few feet away, straightened, and turned to face him. Fully himself for the first time in ages, Sasuke didn't even try to stop the smirk that slid onto his face, but Naruto's lack of violent response meant that his heart was reflected in his eyes.

"Bastard, when did you learn that one? If I knew it I'd never walk anywh- _mmph_!"

Sasuke had yanked Naruto flush against himself in one swift movement, and in the space between "any" and "where" he had snaked his tongue into Naruto's mouth and Naruto had stopped trying to talk. It might have been the tongue, but it also might have been from sensing exactly how Sasuke felt after six straight hours of watching Naruto's leg muscles and glutes bunch and relax as he leaped from tree limb to tree limb on all fours. Sasuke was gratified to discover that the feeling was mutual.

Just as his tongue was exploring Naruto's mouth, so were his hands roaming over Naruto's body. He'd felt probably every inch of it with his fists during sparring, but the situation now was quite different. Now he could linger on the broad planes of muscle that covered his back and the steel hardness of his arms. He liked it even better when, after turning them around so that he could shove Naruto up against the door, instead of an "ouch" and a punch to the face, he got Naruto's left leg wrapping around his thighs, pulling them even closer. Naruto's own hands were busy, one arm wrapped all the way around Sasuke's neck so that he was practically touching his own shoulder, and the other gripping the hair on the back of Sasuke's head almost to the point of pain.

All those stories he had heard about lung capacity being necessary for long make-out sessions were just plain lies. Either that, or whoever was telling them had never had a session passionate enough to qualify them as an expert. He and Naruto repositioned themselves every few seconds, mouths working hungrily and air whistling in through their nostrils as they tried frantically to merge their two bodies into a single united being (AN: see Aristophanes' speech in _Plato's Symposium_, or, failing that, "The Origin of Love" from _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_).

Despite the outer warmth that finally matched what had been growing inside of his mind since that day Naruto had forgotten his jacket, it still wasn't enough. Sasuke stilled his hands, leaving one to clasp the small of Naruto's back, cushioning it from the hardwood door, and curving the other upward until he could almost see his own fingers over Naruto's shoulder. He pulled away from his teammate's mouth, placating Naruto's disappointed growl with a tightening of his arms that rubbed their clothed groins together and shot electricity up his spine, and planting kisses on that tan neck, occasionally using his teeth, relishing the sensation of Naruto's fingers tightening and loosening in his hair with each attack. He knew he'd found the right spot – just below the ear, under the jawbone, while golden hair tickled his nose – when he sucked hard on it and Naruto made a gasping noise and went boneless in his arms.

Taking advantage of the blonde's temporary lack of grip, Sasuke divested Naruto of his shirt while using his lower body to keep him pinned to the wall. Recovering more quickly than Sasuke had anticipated, Naruto growled again and returned the favor. Caught off-guard, Sasuke had to move fast to keep his high collar from hitting him in the nose as his hemline whipped past his face and disappeared.

When his vision was again clear of obstructive clothing, he was rewarded by the sight of a half-naked Naruto, real as anything, surrounding him with his honey-tan arms and pulling him close again. He caught sight of a flash of blue, Naruto's eyes twinkling, and he just had time to wonder why they were open at all before he was falling.

Naruto had expertly slid lower the leg that had been wrapped 'round his thighs, hitting him behind the knees and taking them both to the ground in a tangle. A huge bright grin split the whiskered face hovering above him, and he realized that he'd let Naruto have the upper hand. How had he let that happen? Oh right, he'd been kind of distracted.

He let the idiot have his fun playing at being in charge while his arms went around Naruto again and Naruto's lips came down on his own. Now that there was bare skin to touch instead of the rough fabric of a t-shirt, he could feel the dampness of sweat and the pounding of Naruto's heart when gravity pressed their lengths together.

Feeling that gravity wasn't trying hard enough, Sasuke twisted his legs with Naruto's and thrust himself upward while pulling Naruto downward, so that friction did interesting things between them. Naruto squirmed, trying to find a comfortable place to put his arms, and white stars winked in Sasuke's vision at the sensation. He inhaled sharply, seeming to suck warm, moist air straight from Naruto's lungs.

This seemed to snap Naruto out of some kind of trace, because he sat up, straddling Sasuke's thighs and dashing the back of his hand over his chin. "Wait, wait, hang on a second!"

Sasuke had never wanted to punch Naruto in the head so badly in his entire life. "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

He tried to sit up, but Naruto halted him with a hand splayed over his bare chest. Just the sensation of the heat of it made him want to purr, but he figured they'd never get anywhere if the idiot didn't have his say. He reclined, tucking his hands behind his head and staring up at Naruto after wiping the drool off of his own chin. "Fine. What?"

"I have a few questions, the biggest of which being: what the hell? All those years of asexuality, despite hordes of drooling fangirls, and it comes down to this?" His gesture with the hand not pressed to Sasuke's chest took in the living room – with Naruto's shirt draping a table lamp and Sasuke's dangling from a ceiling fixture - as well as the two of them shirtless on the floor, looking a mess. Sasuke was surprised and slightly disappointed they hadn't broken any furniture, but hey, it had been a long day and neither of them had slept well the night before.

Sasuke couldn't prevent his mouth from smirking as it said, "Obviously," but he could go on after his snarky side had had its say. He talked fast, because the hand on his chest was clenching into a fist, and Naruto – despite adorable sex-hair – was starting to look threatening.

"It's you, moron. I tried to be asexual, because I didn't need the distractions, but that night I saw those idiotic villagers hurting you, I just couldn't stop myself." He forced himself, against long habit, to keep talking as Naruto's eyes went wide at all the information he was volunteering. "After that, it was like I couldn't stop thinking about you, and I felt more and more until I felt so much that I couldn't ignore it any longer. The client helped me see it last night when he was banging on about Sakura.

"Come to think of it, she probably planned that with him on purpose. She's known all along, hasn't she? Did you tell her?" Naruto shook his head, still looking awestruck by Sasuke's uncharacteristic loquacity. "She's pretty smart. Anyway, what I'm getting at, what I've been trying to avoid saying by saying all this to you, is -"

"I think I'm in love with you!"

A ringing silence followed the exclamation/declaration, during which the two boys stared at each other while Naruto turned bright red. "I don't know why I said that, I'm sorry, it just kind of slipped out," said Naruto, and he shifted his weight to get off of Sasuke.

Sasuke moved like lightning, wrapping a hand around each of Naruto's knees, keeping him in place. "_Baka_," he said, tightening his grip as Naruto tried to pull away. "You can't just say something like that then run away. Let it sink in for a minute."

Naruto stilled on top of him, for which Sasuke was grateful; the squirming was . . . distracting. And, as pleasant a distraction as it was, Sasuke wanted very much to be able to focus on this moment. Time stretched thin between them as he lay on his entry room floor where his family had once passed back and forth and left their shoes and coats, unable to make himself move or speak lest he cause the moment to shatter.

More time passed, and Naruto started to look annoyed again. Shirtless, sweaty, gorgeous, but annoyed. Naruto had managed to up-end Sasuke's entire world in two seconds with one sentence, but at the sight of that expression on that whiskered face everything fell back into place with a _click_ he was surprised wasn't audible. Everything was new now, yet it was just the same as it ever was.

Either way, Naruto was impatiently awaiting his answer, and though Sasuke was fairly certain about it by this point, he still wasn't absolutely sure and he couldn't lie to Naruto; anyway he'd lost his nerve to say the actual words when Naruto had derailed his momentum.

"Yeah, _dobe_, I think I am, too. With you, I mean." And that was really the best he could do at this point. _Coward_, hissed the mental voice, the "sane" one that always sounded a little like his father.

For once in his life he ignored it. _After all_, he thought as Naruto, looking satisfied with the response, resumed teasing his nipples with tongue and fingers while squirming anew in that pleasantly distracting fashion, _it's not like I won't say it eventually. Just not now_.

As he levered his legs upward while turning sideways in order to put Naruto back on the floor in the submissive position where he belonged, he smiled. At the moment, he had better things to do with his mouth.

_OWARI_

Arigatou, everyone, for sticking with _U and I_ 'til the end! When I sat down to write it I had no idea it would turn into this 10-chapter monster. Thanks for all your support and the lovely reviews that let me know I'm not completely crap at this writing gig!


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